


Titan

by lilyevcans



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Kid Fic, MSR, Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Post-Canon, lots of banter, some slight violence but nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-10-13 04:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyevcans/pseuds/lilyevcans
Summary: Seven years after Mulder is found not guilty, Mulder and Scully are married, have a daughter, and are trying to find a murderer who's strong enough to shatter doors and snap iron into pieces.A case file and family fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time writing for The X-Files, so go easy on me! :) I'm really excited to finally be sharing the story I've been pretty much completely attached to for a couple of weeks. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> FYI, this was originally posted as two chapters, but I decided to combine them! I also added a little bit and edited it. The chapter count is now adjusted accordingly. Hopefully, this doesn't bother anyone too much.

Dana Scully has never been a morning person. She could go to bed at three in the afternoon and still take twenty minutes just trying to get her eyes used to the sunlight. Part of this, she thinks, stems from a need to justify why she’s getting up in the first place. She spent many years dreading seeing failing bodies she can’t save, people she’s gotten to too late. Many years ago she told Mulder joining the X-Files had ruined her social life, but now she sees it would have imploded anyway. Nobody can go on for very long if they don’t have any reasons to. The X-Files has given her more than enough reasons—tangible reasons, people they’ve helped that write them letters thanking them. When she was a doctor, she felt like half a drop in a vast and unchanging sea. Now, despite all the attempts against them, she and Mulder have actually uncovered secrets, stopped conspiracies. They are the tide, pushing—

Speaking of tangible reasons. Scully feels a resounding thud as Audrey jumps on their bed.

“Dad, we’re out of cereal,” she says.

Her eyes are still closed, but she can tell Mulder is smiling.

“Even Mom’s gross healthy Muesli?” he says.

“Yeah, even that.”

“Really?” Scully says. “When I had it yesterday, there was still plenty left.” 

Audrey giggles. “Well, I don’t really want to eat it.”

“I’ll tell you what. I think I have a case of cinnamon rolls in the fridge we can make,” Scully tells her. “How’s that?” 

“Good!” Audrey says. 

“Really good,” Mulder agrees.

“I’ll go put them in the pan!” Audrey says. 

“Wait for us before you put them in the oven,” Mulder calls after her, but all that’s left is a trail of dust. “She takes after her mother,” he says.

 Scully laughs. “How many times do you think you’ve told me that, Mulder?”

“Hey, it’s a good thing. Although I was trying to get her to eat broccoli last night by telling her it’s how we got accepted into the FBI and she gave me such a look that I was expecting her to say, ‘How do you expect me to believe that, Mulder?’" 

Scully turns over and sees the alarm clock reads 9:45. Audrey does seem to be taking after her. 

“What were you thinking just now? It seemed serious,” he says, turning from his back to his side to face her and wrap an arm around her waist.

She snuggles closer. “Could you tell?”

“You always get the same look.” Mulder purses his lips, scrunching his eyes slightly, and Scully laughs slightly.

“Just about the X-Files, and Audrey, and you. There were a lot of metaphors. I think I might have listened to too much Joni Mitchell last night.”

“No such thing.”

She places a hand on his neck, using it to angle his face towards her so she can kiss him gently.

It’s Sunday, with nothing to do except make cinnamon rolls and maybe go to the park, or the movies. There have been a lot of these days recently, with both of them choosing to let other agents take over some of the grunt work that the X-Files always requires a ton of. Scully used to think nothing could beat the adrenaline rush of catching a suspect and knowing that you had the right person, but now she can think of a lot. Mainly, trying to steal a tiny tub of processed icing back from your husband so you and your daughter can both sneak a bite before it goes on the cinnamon rolls.

But of course, somebody's decided that three lazy Sundays are enough for one month, and Scully’s pretty sure that person goes by Walter Skinner. Her phone starts ringing right after they’ve moved from the breakfast table to the couches in the living room to watch _Arthur_. The phone flashes, showing the picture of the three of them wearing cheap alien costumes for Halloween and displaying an incoming call from Skinner.

“Scully,” she says with a sigh.

“Agent Scully, I’m sorry to do this on a weekend, but we’re pretty sure we’ve got a serial murderer on our hands here in D.C.”

“No offense, sir, but what makes you think it could be an X-File?”

She turns to Mulder and mouths _serial killer_. Then she turns to Audrey and sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes.

“Well, the first victim wasn’t exactly...human,” Skinner says.

“Alien?”

“Lion.”

“Really, sir? I’m still trying to determine what makes you think we could offer any help with this.”

“The lion lived in a large caged area within the D.C. zoo. The bars around it were ripped clean in half so the killer could enter and shoot it. It looks like the killer did the same thing with the gate surrounding the zoo so he could enter without alerting the night watchmen. This happened two days ago, but was mostly dismissed as the work of some extreme anti-zoo organization. However, recent events are making that theory seem unlikely.”

Scully steps out of the room so Audrey won’t hear her ask, “What happened to the second victim?”

“His name is Michael Smith. He was shot in the apartment he's been renting earlier this morning. The landlady was out shopping, but found him when she dropped by to remind him to pay his rent. The gun was his. First cops on the scene expected some type of burglary gone wrong, but when they arrived they found the front door had basically been turned to sawdust.”

“So you-you’re saying you think the killer has some sort of extreme strength?”

“I don’t what to think,” Skinner says. “That’s why it’s your job and not mine.”

Scully promises that she and Mulder will be on the scene ASAP and then hangs up.

“Bad news, Addie,” she says as she goes back into the living room. “Dad and I have got to go to work today.”

“Awww,” Audrey says. “Does Grandma still have Cinderella recorded?”

“I don’t know why she wouldn’t.”

“I’m okay then!” Audrey chirps.

Mulder catches Scully’s eye and they both start to laugh.

“What?” Audrey says, her lower lip sticking out a little.

“You’re just a pretty cool six year old, that’s all,” Mulder says.

"Yeah, I guess I am,” she agrees.

“Alright, come on, Audrey, let's get you to Grandma’s,” Scully says.

If anyone told her ten years ago that she and Mulder would be singing along to a Hits of Disney playlist as they drove to a crime scene, she probably would have pointed her gun at their head. But as she looks back as Audrey, who’s belting out the chorus of “Part of Your World” with all the energy her tiny body can muster, her eyes closed in concentration, Scully decides she ended up where she needed to.

* * *

All thoughts of Disney have left Mulder and Scully’s heads after they enter the crime scene. The apartment is actually just a small space separate from the rest of the landlady's house. A small pool of blood is stuck on the living room carpet, but the body is nowhere in sight. 

Scully immediately gets to work, pulling her hair up into a ponytail and snapping on some latex gloves. She is, Mulder thinks, more in her element here than he will ever be, despite his experience.   

Crime scenes freak him out, plain and simple. Aliens he can usually understand. He doesn’t agree with their motivations, but he understands them. Monsters are simply monsters, doing what they’re designed to do. But humans are different. Humans will sometimes kill for no reason at all. That’s certainly what it seems like here. There aren’t enough mistakes or enough blood to suggest a crime of passion, but there are too many odd details for it to be a hit, especially including the lion. It’s almost like it was designed to stick out to the FBI.

"Get a sample of that," Scully says to one of the local cops, pointing to the blood. "It's probably all the victim's, but maybe we'll get lucky."

The cop, a serious-looking woman in her mid-thirties, nods briskly and leans over the stain.

"Where's the body?" she asks the cop.

"In the closet. We found it locked in there."

Scully gestures for Mulder to follow her into Michael Smith's bedroom. It's just as cramped as the rest of the apartment, the closet even more so. Michael Smith's body has been contorted into an odd pose just so he'll fit.

Even with the trickles of blood splatter on some of his shirts hanging up, it's not even close to the gore of some of the crime scenes Mulder's seen, but it's unnerving. The victim has dimples and is young enough that he has no stubble shadowing his face. The thought that somebody pushed this kid's body into his own bedroom closet for no discernable reason, at least not one they've found yet, is not a pleasant one.

A look briefly flashes across Scully's face that Mulder recognizes as sadness, but it's only there for a split second before she straightens it into one of professionalism.

"Hey, you guys took pictures of this, right?" she questions one of the CSI guys dusting for prints. He nods.

Scully squats and purses her lips, clearly trying to figure out how to examine the body. 

"I think we'll have to pull him out, Mulder. Can you come over here? I may need your help."

Mulder's appreciation that she asked him for help rather than one of the many other people on the scene overrides his hatred of doing things like this, so he walks over to stand in front of the closet, opposite Scully.

"How are we going to do this?"

"I'm not sure. I don't want to damage the body," she says.

In the end, Mulder ends up lifting him up by the chest, Scully carrying the legs, which sounds a lot simpler than it looks. It's about six minutes of them telling the other to be gentle, and then cursing and adjusting their positions.

Finally, they can lay the body down on the floor, Scully bending down to examine him.

"Rigor mortis is just starting in the eyelids and jaw, and the neck too. Time of death was probably two to six hours ago." She looks up towards Mulder. "When did the landlady find him?"

"I'm not sure. Actually, we need to interview her. Where is she?"

One of the CSI men points down. "Had to get a cop to make her some tea."

"Ok. Scully, I'll be right back."

Scully gives a distracted nod, already absorbed in her examination again.

Mulder finds his way to a door connecting the two spaces and opens it, walking into an overly decorated, homey living room, a direct contrast to the baren walls of Michael Smith's apartment. The landlady is in the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea.

"I'm Agent Mulder," he says to the woman, flashing his badge, a gesture he thinks may comfort her, as the FBI usually reassures people the case is being taken seriously. It does not comfort her.

"FBI?" she exclaims, her eyes widening. She has a slight Southern accent. "They were telling me it was a robbery!"

"Was anything stolen other than Mr. Smith's gun, Mrs—"

"Ms. Yearling," she says. "My husband died last year."

"I'm very sorry to hear that."

"It's very lonely. And all three of my kids are in college now, so it's even worse. That's why I opened the house up to a boarder. And Michael was such a lovely boy, I really can't believe it," Ms. Yearling trails off, before shaking her head slightly. "I'm sorry, what was the question?"

"I asked if anything had been stolen other than the gun."

"Oh no, I don't think so. Not like there was much to steal. Michael had only been here a couple weeks, so he was still setting up." 

"Did he say what he was doing in D.C.?"

"Not really. Why?" Ms. Yearling clenches her jaw. "You don't think he was killed because of some gang or something? It's impossible! I'm friends with his aunt. They're all very good people! He probably just wanted a change of scenery."

"From where?"

"He lived in a very small town in Georgia. I can't remember the name. It was about twenty minutes away from Deacon, where I'm from. We moved when my husband got a job here fifteen years ago." 

"What can you tell me about Mr. Smith? How old was he, did he ever have any guests, that sort of thing," Mulder asks, still trying to calm her down slightly before asking when she found the body.

"He was twenty-two. He was still trying to find a job around here. And I never saw any guests. Michael didn't have friends around here yet."

"Thank you, Ms. Yearling. I just have one more question. I know it's hard, but can you tell me when you found the body?"

Ms. Yearling heaves a shuddering sigh that ripples through her entire petite frame. "Well, I think it was about an hour and a half ago. I just got back from shopping and was going to remind him about the rent, but he didn't answer. When I went in, I just had the worst feeling pass over me. And then I saw the blood on the floor, so I ran out and called the police."

Mulder scribbles the time she found him on his notepad. "Thank you. You've been a huge help."

She nods. "You were very kind, Agent Mulder. Nothing like the ghastly FBI agents on T.V."

Mulder leaves her to her tea and walks back to Micahel Smith's bedroom. Scully is still looking over the body, so he crouches beside her.

"The landlady found him about an hour and a half ago. So he was dead at least thirty minutes before."

Scully smiles. "Thanks, Mulder. I've determined the victim was killed from a single shot through the head, but take a look at this."

She points to Michael Smith's arm, which is still bent oddly. 

Mulder pauses, trying to remember all that Scully's taught him over the years. "Was it broken?"

"Right! It looks like several of his bones were broken, actually."

“Before or after death?” Mulder asks her.

“Well, I can’t be sure until the autopsy. But I’d say the killer probably threw him across the room so that they could get the gun, then shot him. It does fit with the super strength idea though. It would take someone strong just to throw the body across the room like this, not to mention break several bones. I'm almost done here, just let me take a closer look at the bones for a second.”

She gingerly touches one of the broken appendages, and Mulder turns away to examine the rest of the apartment. There’s almost nothing in the fridge or pantry. Great, all that tells him that the victim was a man in his late twenties. Back in the bedroom, there’s a Bible on the bedside table. A quick flip through shows it was heavily annotated. There’s also a picture next to it, filled with so many people that they almost get pushed out of frame. Interesting, he supposes, but still not particularly helpful.

He rejoins Scully, who takes her gloves off and stands up to stretch, an adorable motion that causes her toes to slightly lift off the ground, making her a good five foot two.

“God, I love you,” he says, causing her to blush slightly, even though she's been hearing it for years now.

“Mulder, not on a case,” she says, in a tone that seems more encouraging than admonishing.

“You know, it’s odd,” she continues. “I don’t know how I’d even begin to describe this crime. There seems to be too much effort put into it to be a crime of passion, but not enough to make it something carefully planned. Serial killers usually get some sort of sick pleasure from the kill, but there’s just one shot. Not to mention the two victims have no discernable connection.”

“God, I really love you,” Mulder says, then mimes zipping his lips, getting a prized laugh out of Scully. “No, I was thinking the exact same thing. The only thing these crimes seem to have in common is the proof of some inhuman strength.”

“I agree, although I'm not sure if this super strength is all some elaborate trick or some sort of medical phenomena.” Scully pauses, thinking, and Mulder thinks she’s about to ask another question about the scene, but instead, she says, “I'm hungry. Can we grab lunch in our way?”

“Hungry? Scully, we had breakfast two hours ago.”

“Well, I know that, but my stomach doesn’t.”

Mulder’s stomach growls in response.

“I guess that's one thing we have solved,” Scully says drily.

* * *

Mulder comes in just as she’s finished the autopsy. The way he always wrinkles his nose when walking into one is a constant source of entertainment for her.

Scully takes off her gloves and throws them away—she can tell from the way he's holding himself that he has news. He doesn't even wait for her to ask what it is before saying, “Scully, have you ever heard of families who take ‘be fruitful and multiply’ a little far?”

He clearly rehearsed this on the way over here, so she humors him. “What do you mean?”

“Michael Smith was the youngest of nine kids.”

“Ugh,” Scully says. “I was only one of four and sometimes I think my parents would fall asleep mid-sentence from exhaustion.”

“The rest of his family lives in Georgia like Ms. Yearling said. According to this article from the local paper there, they’re prominent Southern Baptists and hunting enthusiasts. The annotated Bible next to Michael’s bed suggests he's following suit,” Mulder says.

 “What are you saying, Mulder? Do you think the killings are somehow related to Christianity?”

“Aslan, the lion from the Narnia series, is meant to represent Jesus Christ. Maybe our lion represents the same thing?”

Scully sighs. “I see what you're saying, Mulder, I do. The Bible does make several references to a lion as a symbol for Jesus, and there are also stories of extreme strength. Goliath, for example. But it just doesn't fit. There's been a kind of frenzy in every case I've ever seen with religious undertones, an extreme passion, but that's just not present here. The victim was only shot once.”

“You're right. I'm grasping at straws here trying to find a connection.” Mulder says. “Did you find anything?”

“Michael Smith’s bones were broken just before death. Other than that, it’s pretty much as I thought.”

Mulder huffs, clearly frustrated. Scully smiles.

“What are you smiling about?” Mulder asks, a smile beginning to creep onto his face as well.

“I'm just glad that this isn't our entire life anymore. When we first started working together, this sort of thing would put us in a horrible mood until we cracked it.”

Mulder takes her hand and rubs a finger over it, but grimaces. “Unfortunately, it's going to need to be our life for a few hours while we research this.”

 Scully groans.

* * *

 Audrey is playing basketball with the kid-sized hoop Maggie bought her for Christmas when they pull in to pick her up.

“Hi, Mom and Dad!”

“Hey Audrey,” Mulder says. “What have you and Grandma been up to?”

“She figured out how to get the TV to play music so we could have a dance party!”

"She did?” Scully asks, turning to her mother, who’s sitting on the steps to the front door. “I don't even know how to do that.”

Audrey passes her the ball in response, and Scully crouches so she can shoot into the tiny hoop.

“How was the crime scene?” Audrey asks.

“Gross,” Mulder says. “Your mom was cool, though.”

 Audrey giggles. “What are we having for dinner?”

“Well,” Scully says, “I was going to make chicken, but I'm kind of tired. Do you want to just pick up a pizza?”

 “Yes, please!”

"Make it Tony’s,” Mulder says. “Pizza Hut didn't agree with my stomach too well last time.”

“Gross, Dad!”

"Yeah, gross, Dad,” Scully says.

Mulder puts his arm around her and chastely kisses her cheek as Audrey bounces up to the steps to hug Maggie goodbye.  

* * *

Mulder checks in on Audrey as he walks to bed. She's sound asleep in her neatly made bed, her stuffed bear beside her with its head on the other pillow.

Scully’s asleep in their bed when he gets there despite the fact the lights are still on, laying on her stomach. Her head is buried deep into the pillow and her glasses are still on, tangled slightly in her hair. He gently takes them off and places them beside her on the bed, then leans over to kiss her hair as he gets in bed.

Her legs are warm, so he presses his feet onto them. She lets out a tiny sigh in response, but doesn't move away.

Most nights they go to bed at the same time, but tonight, he can tell Scully was exhausted from trying to find a lead in their case. He is too, but his body is so used to a lack of sleep that his exhaustion barely shows. It used to be so bad that when he and Scully first moved in together, he would get up from their very comfortable bed to lay on the couch (still pretty comfortable, as they ended up mostly using Scully's clearly superior furniture) just because he was so used to it. That quickly changed, after Scully woke up without him for the third or fourth time and made it her mission to get him to appreciate all the benefits of sleeping in bed with her. Now all he usually needs to fall asleep is Scully's arm slung across his back or her legs tangled with his.

Tonight, his brain is still racing, so he gently brushes through Scully's hair with his fingers, an activity that never fails to calm him. Unfortunately, it's an action that ends up pointless. His phone is vibrating with a call from Skinner.

Scully turns to face him as he answers the phone.

“Mulder.”

Skinner sounds exhausted. “He’s struck again.”

 “Where is it?”

 “Georgetown. It's a college student, Natalie Betting.”

“Stabbed?”

 “No, that's the thing. She’s been kidnapped.”

* * *

 “Mulder, who was that on the phone?” Scully says, rubbing her eyes. She still feels like she’s half asleep.

“Skinner. Our man’s kidnapped a college student.”

“Shit.” She's wide awake now. “Mulder, what's this guy playing at?”

“I have no idea, Scully.”

Mulder usually has some sort of theory by this point, so it’s strange to know both of them are completely in the dark.

She sighs. “How do they know the crime is connected?”

“The door’s in pieces. What are we going to do with Audrey?"

“Oh, damn it. Take her to my mom’s, I guess.”

“God bless Maggie Scully.”

“I’ll go get her,” Scully says.

She goes to Audrey’s room and tries to get her as gently as possible, but she still wakes up startled as soon as she's lifted up from the bed.

“Mama? What’s going on?”

Audrey’s voice shakes a little, and Scully pulls her closer.

“Nothing, baby. Dad and I just have to go work for a little while. You can have a sleepover with Grandma.”

“Okay.” Audrey closes her eyes. “I’ll miss you.”

“Oh, Addie, I’ll miss you too.”

When she was very young, Scully liked to imagine the future she wanted for herself: a nice job, a big wedding, and then a family and a house in the suburbs. Even after she was recruited to the FBI, even after she met Mulder and became just as consumed by his quest for the truth as he was, Scully maintained hope she might still get some of that future, especially when she realized the nameless and faceless husband in her daydreams had taken on Mulder's name and Mulder's face and started talking in Mulder's voice without her realizing. And she got lucky. She got all the good parts of what she'd originally dreamt: the wedding, the family, a job she loved enough to stick through the times she hated it, and none of the things she'd realized would have stifled her if she pursued every part of her childhood vision. But sometimes she longs for those simpler days of cheap motels and flights to the middle of nowhere, because she had nothing to lose back then. Maybe Mulder, though he still wasn't fully hers to lose. It's hard to leave Audrey behind even to pursue the job she still loves, but she's not going to complain when she knows that she and Mulder could have lost the chance to have all of this so many times before.

So she squares her shoulders, presses a kiss onto Audrey's head, and keeps going.

* * *

Natalie Betting's roommate introduces herself as Leslie Calway. Black mascara and sparkly purple eyeshadow are streaked down her face, and strands of blonde hair are stuck to her face.

“When did you notice Natalie was missing, Ms. Calway?” Scully asks.

“Uh, just an hour ago, I think. So one. When I got back from the bar. I asked Natalie if she wanted to go with me, but she told me she had a paper to finish. So I left her. Oh God, when I left I told her to pick her clothes off the floor. What if that's the last thing I ever said to her?”

Leslie breaks into fresh tears, and Scully places a hand on her shoulder.

“Is there anything you can tell us about Natalie that you think may have made her a target? That set her apart from others?”

Leslie nods instantly. “She’s a virgin.”

Mulder raises his eyebrows. “She told you this?” he says incredulously.

“Everyone knows,” Leslie says. “The first time I met her, she told me she was the president of the chastity club at her high school. And she brings it up a lot. Waiting for marriage and all that. It kind of attracts some weirdos, but she's never given any of them the time of day.”

“Is she particularly religious?” Mulder asks.

“Catholic, I think. She goes to some church around here every Sunday.”

“Alright, thank you, Ms. Calway. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

Leslie nods and wipes away tears. “We’ve been roommates all four years here. I just—I can’t believe—um, I’ll be staying in my friend’s room at the end of the hall. Just come get me if you need anything else. Or if you, um, find Natalie.”

She trails out of the room, giving Mulder and Scully the chance to walk around the tiny dorm. There’s a poster of Taylor Swift, a stuffed giraffe on the bed, a picture of Natalie and Leslie on the desk.

“A lion, a ninth child, and a virgin. Sounds like the start of a bad joke,” Mulder jokes.

“Or a nightmare,” Scully says. “Could the virginity could be the key to this? Do we know if Michael Smith was a virgin?”

Mulder chuckles, causing Scully to shoot him a pointed look before succumbing to laughter herself.

“Mulder, it’s late, I’m tired, and none of this makes sense. Why shoot a lion and a man, and then kidnap a girl?”

“Both human victims were Christian. There are three victims in total. Maybe that’s a reference to the Holy Trinity.”

Scully frowns. “Trust me, Mulder, I don’t think that’s what it is.”

“It’s the only plausible theory!”

Scully shakes her head. “I never thought I’d be arguing against such a reasonable theory. But there’s no way this super strength is God-given. Even if it’s some hoax, it just doesn’t fit.”

A young cop runs through the empty doorway. “Are you Fox?”

“Unfortunately,” Mulder says.

“They told me to come to get you. The station just got the call from a professor here's wife saying he didn't return to his house tonight.”

“Who is he?” Scully asks.

“Dr. Edward Larke. Apparently, he’s home before six most days, but his wife just thought he went out for drinks or something until she saw the news that Natalie Betting was missing,” the cop says.

“Are there any witnesses? Do we know who the last person to see him was?” Mulder asks.

The cop brings his fingers to his mouth and starts biting a nail. He could honestly just have turned twenty. “Uh, I didn’t ask.”

Scully catches Mulder’s eye and says, “That’s fine. Mulder, I’m going to see how many men I can assemble to form a search party and try to close off any exits to the city. There’s no telling how far they’ll have gone.”

Mulder nods. “I’ll call you when I found out when Dr. Larke was last seen.”

* * *

 “This is Special Agent Dana Scully. I’ve got a possible double kidnapping here at Georgetown. I believe the kidnapper is also the main suspect in a murder investigation and is most likely armed and dangerous. I need to form a search party and close off exits to the city as quickly as possible.”

Scully puts her radio away and gets into her car. There’s no telling where the suspect could be taking Dr. Larke and Natalie, or why he picked them, or how much of a head start he had. She reminds herself to breathe, then turns on the radio and starts the car. 

* * *

A young woman dressed in pajamas answers the door to the room Leslie told them she’d be staying in.

“Is this where Leslie is staying?”

“She’s right there.” The girl points to Leslie, who’s sitting in front of a tiny TV playing the local news.

“And now, a throwback to our very first ‘Mackerel’s Tech Minute’ with Danny Mackerel!” Lizzie Alton, the polished co-host of the evening and late night news announces from the TV.

“Damn it, give me an update!” Leslie cries, banging the TV with her hand.

The other girl clears her throat. Leslie looks up, embarrassed, and bounds over to join them at the doorway.

“Did you find Natalie?” Leslie asks.

“We’re trying to. There may be something you can help us with though. Do either of you know of a Dr. Larke?”

Emily nods. “I can barely stay awake in his class.”

“When does he usually leave school?”

“Dr. Larke’s last class always ends at four. He’s always bragging about it for some reason, but it’s because nobody wants to take his freaking class” Emily says, nose wrinkling.

“Does he ever have students visit him afterward, or does he go straight home?”

“Dr. Larke has office hours every day until five, but the only one who goes is Chad.”

“Would Chad have been there today?” Mulder asks.

“He’s there every day. Chad skipped class for an entire month and Dr. Larke said the only way he wouldn’t fail is if he went to office hours every day until the final.”

* * *

 It’s four in the morning now. Scully is exhausted, dreaming of hot bubble baths and silk pajamas and pillow forts.

Her phone rings, playing the generic spooky sound effect she and Mulder have programmed to play when the other calls.

“Scully, it’s me.”

“What do you have for me, Mulder?”

“Dr. Larke is apparently a real snooze fest.” Mulder tells Scully what Leslie and Emily told him.

“Did Chad go today?” Scully asks.

“He says Dr. Larke seemed fine when he left at five. He was just grading papers, apparently,” Mulder says.

“Leslie last saw Natalie at half past five, but the kidnapper could have just gone to get Dr. Larke first. We have no idea what happened between that time and one, when Leslie saw Natalie was missing. They could be anywhere, Mulder.”

“If we haven’t found them now, we probably won’t until we uncover some sort of evidence. Let’s call it a night. Come and pick me up so we can home and get some rest.”

“Okay…” she trails off, distracted by two people walking past her. One is a young woman wearing a Georgetown hoodie, the other is a neatly dressed man in his fifties.

“Mulder, I can’t believe it.”

“What is it, Scully?”

“It’s them. I see them. They’re just walking into a McDonalds. Call an Uber to Mom’s house. I’ll pick them up and interview them before I head home,” Scully says.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re fucking amazing, Dana Scully?”

“Very often. In fact, I think I remember you saying that on Friday night?”

Mulder groans at the memory.

“I have to go. See you in a bit,” Scully says, then hangs up.

She parks and then walks into the McDonalds. Dr. Larke and Natalie are talking to one of the baristas.

“Are you Dr. Edward Larke and Natalie Betting? I’m Special Agent Dana Scully.”

She gives them a quick flash of her badge and they both nod.

“Let’s sit over here,” she says, gesturing to an empty table. They comply.  

“I’ve found them,” she says into her radio, before turning towards her company. “You both were kidnapped tonight, correct?” she asks.

They both nod again.

“Did you get a look at who did it?”

Natalie shakes her head. “He had a black ski mask on.”

“Did you notice his build or hear him speak?”

“He was completely average. Maybe like six feet tall? He wasn’t skinny, but he wasn’t not skinny either,” Natalie says. “He sounded pretty normal too.”

“Who got kidnapped first?”

“Me,” Dr. Larke says, unnecessarily raising a hand. “I was putting away papers when suddenly I saw a gun in my face. He told me to follow him to his car.”

“And nobody saw you?”

“I close up my wing of the building. Everybody else was gone.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, he gagged me and blindfolded me as soon as I got into his car. He made me lie on the floor. Then he left.”

“And then he went to get Ms. Betting?”

“Yeah,” Natalie says. “My roommate Leslie was at the bar and I was alone in our dorm. The door was locked because we watched some dumb horror movie earlier and I was scared. But then all of a sudden I heard this noise, and I saw him just push the door in so hard it shattered. Then it was the same as Dr. Larke.”

“Then what?”

Natalie shrugs. “He drove around for a while, but we never got out or anything. Then he stopped a little ways away from here and let us out.”

“One last question. Did you notice anything about the car?”

Dr. Larke shakes his head remorsefully, but Natalie says, “It was a big black minivan, but we were really squished because we both had to lie of the floor. When he was making me get in it, he ripped the door handle off on accident, even though he was just using one finger to open it.”

Scully sighs. Dr. Larke excuses himself to the men’s room and Scully gives Natalie her phone so she can call a ride.

“I think somebody texted you,” Natalie tells her when Scully hands her the phone.

Of course, they’re from Mulder. One says:  _remember when we realized Audrey thought our full names were mulder and scully_

The other says:  _just thought I’d make you laugh a little to keep you awake_

Then:  _don’t hold anyone at gunpoint without me, yr so hot when u do that_

Scully laughs. “Ignore those, they’re from my husband,” she says.

“Is that him?” Natalie asks, pointing to her contact picture for Mulder, an old picture of the two of them at an FBI Halloween party. They were all told to dress as something scary, and while the other agents dressed as spiders, witches, and zombies, she and Mulder had dressed as each other without knowing the other did the same thing. Mulder’s costume was complete with a red wig and sensible skirt and blazer combo; Scully wore an ugly tie and a tinfoil hat.

“Yes, that’s him. It was taken a long time ago though, way before anything happened between us.”

“That’s so cute! And I didn’t mean to look at your texts, but I saw you have a daughter?”

She doesn’t know where this is going, but Scully says, “Yes, Audrey. She’s six.”

“You probably don’t care, but I babysit in my spare time, in case you ever need one. You guys just seem like you’re a lot of fun.”

“We definitely could use one,” Scully says.

Natalie smiles as she punches in her address and phone number and hands the phone back to Scully, who texts Mulder back:  _i went and held ten guys at gunpoint without you._

She thinks Mulder is probably asleep, but he texts:  _are you going to make it up to me?_

Scully texts:  _if you’re bad enough_

Seconds later, he texts:  _get home, you need rest. love you Scully_

She texts:  _love you too Mulder_

She doesn’t pretend to understand their relationship.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a card-carrying member of the Let Scully and Mulder Say "Fuck" Club and you can't change my mind!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said this on the notes for last chapter, but I'll repeat it here just to be sure there isn't any confusion. I decided to combine the first two chapters I posted to streamline the plot slightly, and added a little more (non-essential) detail just to improve the pacing a little. You definitely don't need to reread it if you don't want to.
> 
> If you're reading this second chapter, thank you! I love this universe so much, so if you have any ideas or requests for other stories that could take place in it, feel free to leave a comment.

Mulder wakes up to a metallic screech somewhere nearby. He bolts awake and sits up in bed, one hand reaching towards his gun, which is somewhat dangerously laying on the bedside table beside her. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but after all these years, he’s prepared for anything.

It’s a garbage truck.

Maggie Scully’s guest bedroom has a large window that overlooks the front yard, which a large garbage truck is parked beside. One of the garbage men gives a jovial wave when he looks through the window, which Mulder reciprocates, maybe a tad forcefully.

“Mulder?” Scully mutters quietly from beside him, buried under a heavy, tasteful comforter decorated with red and pink flowers.

He slumps back down and brings the comforter back over him, turning towards Scully and pulling her so close that their faces are almost touching. In her rush to get into bed when she finally got back from interviewing the kidnapping victims, she must have skipped some steps of her usually thorough nighttime routine, because there’s some mascara smeared under her eyes that Mulder gently rubs away. Scully smiles sleepily and brings a hand to his face in return, rubbing her fingers across his cheek. He can still smell the light trace of her favorite perfume. Whenever he has to testify in court, a place where nobody will ever believe that what he’s testifying is the truth, he sprays some of it on a sheet of paper to calm himself.

“As nice as this is, we probably need to get ready in a minute,” Scully says finally, her voice rough from sleep. “Have you taken a shower?”

“Took one before I got in bed. Have you?”

She gestures to her hair, which he now notices has a slight curl to it, something her hair does whenever she washes it and lets it air dry.

“Is it depressing that we’re so accustomed to this?” Scully asks.

“Nah. Well, maybe slightly.”

Scully huffs, the kind of laugh that means she’s pretending to be annoyed. She leans forward and presses a light kiss on Mulder’s forehead before pulling away and reaching for her phone.

She closes her eyes in apparent frustration when she sees the time. “It’s 11:30. I’m surprised Skinner hasn’t called to ask where we are yet.”

“We’ve put in more hours than half of the FBI combined. I think we’re fine for getting more than three hours of sleep.”

“Are you calling us old?” she asks, a mock pout of her lips as she stretches and gets out of bed. They’ve only stayed at Maggie’s house after getting called out on a case in the middle of the night a couple of times, and just so they don’t have to wake up Audrey again to take her home, but they both keep a change of clothes in the guest bedroom closet that Scully opens now, pulling on a navy sweater and putting one leg into her pants before stopping in a panic.

“Shit! Mulder, Audrey has school today.”

He sits up in bed for the second time, about to jump out.

“I took her,” Maggie calls from somewhere in the house.

Scully blushes, embarrassed she yelled loudly enough that her mother heard through the closed door, and Mulder relaxes again, leaning his head against the headboard.

“Dana, can you help me pack your lunches in the kitchen?” Maggie says, her voice louder this time. Scully opens the door to find her standing outside and nods.

“Of course, Mom. Mulder, get dressed. We need to leave as soon as we can,” Scully says as she leaves to go to the kitchen.

It’s obvious that Maggie is making an excuse so that she can speak to Scully in private. It’s even more obvious when he hears their conversation, clear as day. The walls in the house are apparently made of tissue.

“Dana, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way—”

“Mom, we’ve talked about this,” Scully says. Her voice undergoes a small enough change that Mulder doesn’t think Maggie notices, but it’s the same change he hears when she insists, “I’m fine, Mulder, really” when she’s really the exact opposite.

“I love looking after Audrey, you know that. I’m just worried you and Mulder are missing out on all of the big moments. And it’s not just one of you, it’s both of you. I found a position at this local pediatrician’s for you. It would have normal workday hours, every day,” Maggie says.

There’s a long pause, and Mulder’s breath hitches.

“I appreciate the concern, Mom, but Mulder and I love working on the X-Files. We wouldn’t be ourselves if we quit. And we’ve been outsourcing a lot of the grunt work. It’s just this one case. Because we don’t know what he’ll do next, we need all hands on deck.”

“Not to mention all the horror around you every day. I know you’re trying to keep it from her, but there have to be some things that slip through.”

“What?” Scully asks, her voice getting even smaller. “She didn’t say something, did she?”

“Well, not exactly, but most kids don’t ask their parents how the crime scene was.”

“Mulder and I have got to go,” Scully says.

* * *

Scully is willing to forget about the conversation with her mother, but as soon as she pulls the car out of the driveway, Mulder turns to her, his expression cloudy.

“I have to tell you, Scully, I heard you and your mom talking,” he tells her.

“I figured,” she sighs. “She means well. She just doesn’t get why we do what we do.”

“Well, I mean…” Mulder breaks off. He looks out the window and doesn’t finish.

“Spit it out, Mulder,” Scully says, though not unkindly.

“What if Maggie has a point, Dana? What if Audrey grows to hate us?”

Mulder calling Scully ‘Dana” represents an unspoken agreement between them. It’s meant different things over the years, from “Trust me” to “I’m sorry”, but here she knows it means he’s truly worried about this. She doesn’t blame him either. His family was torn apart due to his father's job.

“Mulder, that won’t happen. We do everything we can to outsource the work. We’re spending as much time with her as possible. There are some parents who just ignore their kids, you know? Or laugh at them, or belittle them. We listen to Audrey, we take her to the zoo and the movies and play basketball with her. We’ve got love on our side here.”

“That actually does make me feel better, Scully. Sometimes I just...I don’t know. I feel like things are too good to be true.”

She can’t actually meet his eyes while she’s driving, but she does for a split second in the car mirror, and that’s enough.

“We deserve all the things we have, ok? We do. After everything, we deserve to have a normal job and a normal life. Well, as normal as you can get.”

Mulder buries his head in his hands. “What point do the X-Files serve anymore? Now that I have you and Audrey, and now that I’m not so consumed by the quest to know what’s out there, it just feels like I’m putting everyone in unnecessary danger.”

“I can’t argue with that. I mean, it did put us in dangerous, bad situations. But if not for the X-Files, we never would have met. Or maybe we would, in some random coincidence, and never realize we were passing somebody who should be one of the most important people in our life by. Not to mention all the people we’ve saved. Those are people who would have died if somebody else handled their case and didn’t understand the truth of what was happening,” Scully says.

Mulder uncovers his face and looks up at her. “I thought you didn’t believe in soulmates. Scully.”

“I don’t, really. I think it can be a dangerous concept. But I believe in us.

She’s kind of laying it on thick, but it’s all true. There are people, normal and innocent people, who would be dead if it wasn’t for the X-Files, and her life would be completely different if she hadn’t been assigned to them or met Mulder. She’d probably still be stuck in her old habit of worrying if she was in the right place, doing the right thing. She’d certainly be lonelier.

“And actually, I just remembered this,” Scully continues. “The other day I walked by Audrey’s room and heard her shouting, “Confess!”, so I opened her bedroom door and saw her acting out an interrogation with her Barbies.”

Mulder gives a wry smile. “I guess that means we've got to go over proper interrogation methods with her now, so Barbie’s confession won't be inadmissible in court.”

* * *

Without understanding the motivations of the Strongman, as the press had somewhat uncreatively dubbed him, it’s hard to tell what he’ll do next or when he’ll do it. But with the kidnapping victims safely returned, there’s nothing Scully and Mulder can do except try to find links between the victims. This would have been frustrating for the two of them at the beginning of their partnership, but now it means they can go home and make dinner together, help Audrey with her homework or watch a movie, and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

When they get to the basement, Agent Noah Price is already sitting in his designated chair, waiting for them. He’s dressed like an actor at the Oscars crossed with an English professor, as always.

“Mulder, Scully, I haven’t seen you guys in forever!”

Noah is a twenty-five year old Harvard graduate. His father is Californian, a fact made apparent by the way he surfs through his sentences, giving all the syllables away at once, and his mother is Argentinian.

Scully jokingly calls him Mulder’s protegee, but Mulder thinks he takes after her more. Noah’s slightly more receptive to the paranormal than Scully was when she first was assigned to the X-Files, but he’s still skeptical, always focusing on the laws of science he’s been taught. He is, however, extremely enthusiastic over undertaking any case.

“I heard you solved that kidnapping case, Noah,” Scully says.

“Yeah. I really didn’t do much though, it was a pretty simple solution.”

From what they heard, Noah had single-handedly solved the case, but neither of them mention it.

“Anyways, I missed seeing you guys. I heard that this guy you’re chasing is some sort of strongman?”

“Apparently,” Scully says.

“Alright! Let’s get to work then.”

One of the reasons Mulder appreciates Noah is that he is perfectly fine with doing menial work. The three of them work perfectly together, too. They can have an entire conversation without ever looking up from their individual tasks.

“Ugh, this soup isn’t hot at all,” Scully complains, still scanning something on the computer as she eats her lunch. “I think I need to buy Mom a new thermos.”

“Cold soup is actually okay,” Noah says.

Mulder thinks that Noah’s one of the best agents he knows, even though he’s only been at it for a couple years. He has a knack for getting people to admit their secrets in interviews, no amount of field work can tire him, and he has a deep understanding of people that allows him to create extremely accurate profiles. He also lacks any common sense.

“You mean like gazpacho?” Scully asks, clearly hoping he meant gazpacho.

“No, like, chicken noodle or whatever,” Noah says. “It’s way easier that way.”

Scully gives a little laugh of shock.

“Noah, you should come to our house for dinner sometime,” Mulder says amicably. “We can teach you how to make soup that you serve hot. Or maybe we’ll just start with how to heat some up.”

“Wait, are you—you guys are together?”

Mulder and Scully raise up their hands in unison, showing their wedding rings.

“But you have different names.”

“I couldn’t get _this one_ to change her last name,” Mulder says.

Noah starts saying, “Hey, that’s not-” just as Scully turns to Noah and explains , “He’s joking.”

“We’ve always been Scully and Mulder,” Scully continues. “It felt wrong to change that, even just on legal documents.”

“But—don’t you guys get sick of each other?”

“All the time,” Scully says, just as Mulder says, “Of course."

Noah’s eyebrows have risen comically high.

“But we spent so much time together before that it didn’t feel like that big of a change,” Scully says, still trying to explain the situation to Noah.

How a person who has such a strong grasp on human behavior failed to notice the fact they were married is clearly unbelievable to her. But to be fair, Mulder was a profiler and he failed to see that he had feelings for Scully and that she reciprocated them for _years_ , so it’s not completely unfathomable.

“He’s going to be amazed when he finds out we have a daughter, Scully,” Mulder says.

“No, I knew that.”

This time, Mulder and Scully both look up from their work to gawk at him.

“I figured you guys both wanted kids, so you just had her as friends or something. I don’t judge,” Noah says with a shrug.

“Like a dog?” Scully laughs.

Noah’s phone interrupts him before he can say anything, blaring an Usher song as it rings. He picks up, says yeah a couple times, then says thank you and hangs up.

“That was Becca,” he announces grandly.

“Who?” Mulder asks.

“Oh, yeah, right. My sister’s friend lives in the same town that Michael Smith was born in, and she’s around the age he was. So I asked her about him. She didn’t know him, but it turns out that she played lacrosse with somebody who went to the same high school as him.”

“And?” Mulder says.

Noah’s ears turn a bright shade of red. “He was most definitely not a virgin.”

“There goes that theory,” Scully says with a sigh.

* * *

Mulder and Scully pick Audrey up from Maggie’s house, where she goes after school. Even though they didn’t make much progress in the case, everyone's in a good mood when they get home, Audrey included.

“And then Mrs. Davis showed us the caterpillars and told us they would turn into butterflies. I didn’t believe her, so I asked her for some proof and she showed us this really cool video where it was all sped up. We’re going to watch them everyday and then plant a garden for them so that when we release them they come back to visit us,” she says as she attempts to cut her serving of pork, before Mulder leans over to slice it for her.

Audrey’s story has been going on since they started eating dinner, at least ten minutes, but both of her parents are completely invested in it. There's a brief pause while she eats a bite of green beans from her plate, then she takes a breath, apparently working up her nerve for something.

“All of my friends had lunchables in their lunch today,” Audrey starts.

“Absolutely not,” Scully says, cutting her off.

“Mom, they've got this one where you can make your own pizza!”

“Do you know how they make those, Addie? The meat isn't even meat, it's all processed things made in a lab.”

This is probably not the right path to take with a six year old who once managed to eat two bags of cotton candy in one sitting. “It’d be way easier than packing me a lunch!” Audrey insists.

“Dad and I don’t mind packing your lunch,” Scully says. “We can make you a homemade lunchable.”

“Dad, tell her that’s not the same!”

Scully flashes Mulder a look. He’s clearly trying to suppress laughter by pressing his mouth shut.

“You can go outside and eat some dirt, that’s probably healthier than eating one of those things,” Mulder says. Scully feels a surge of love for him.

Audrey sighs dramatically and silently eats her dinner for about five minutes before she decides she’s bored of being mad and starts talking about her part as a rabbit in the school play.

Audrey came home a couple weeks before upset over the fact that her friend Maddie had more family members coming to watch her perform than she did, so after assuring her that the people in her life loved her just as much as Maddie’s did and that it wasn’t a competition, Mulder and Scully invited Maggie, Noah, and Skinner. Scully even called Bill and convinced him to plan his family’s spring trip to D.C. a couple days early so they could all attend.

Dinner slides easily into dessert and then into the night, where the three of them watch _Cinderella_ for what may be the millionth time before tucking Audrey into bed and going back downstairs to watch an episode of _Mad Men_.

“Mulder, what’s going on?” Scully asks, prying her eyes open once again.

“Going on with what?” he says sleepily, his eyes closed as well.

“With Don Draper.”

“Hmm?”

She untangles herself from his arms and yawns. “Let’s just go to bed.”

“Why? We’re perfectly absorbed in this episode,” he teases.

“Yeah? What’s happening in it?”

“Advertising, probably.”

Scully laughs and tugs at his arm. “Come on, I’m tired.”

“Fine.” Mulder stands and grabs her hand. “What time is it?”

“Best not to check. We’ll just depress ourselves,” Scully says.

* * *

Mulder wakes up when a small hand gently presses on his shoulder. He untangles himself from Scully and turns to see Audrey standing beside the bed, clutching her bear.

“Dad, I can’t sleep.”

“Nightmare?” he asks, and she nods.

“Let’s go back to your bed so we don’t wake up Mom.”

He gingerly gets up from the bed. Audrey outstretches her free hand and he takes it, letting her walk them back to her bedroom.

“Do you remember what it was about?” Mulder asks her once they’re both laying on the bed, her head on his stomach. The glittery stars stuck to her ceiling in place of a night light sparkle slightly as he waits for her to answer.

“There was a monster chasing me,” she says softly.

“A monster? That’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s not?”

“Of course not. Mom and I chase monsters all day. We could save you from anything trying to get you,” he says.

“But what if you weren’t there to save me?”

“You’ve got monster-hunting in your genes! If any monster tried to come after you, it would be on the ground before either of you even knew it.”

He thinks she’s fallen asleep, but then she asks, “What was the scariest monster you and Mom ever caught?”

Telling her the worst of the worst is probably not a great way to stop nightmares, so instead Mulder says, “How about the grossest? We once had to chase this big worm who swam his way into the sewers.

“How big?”

“Big as a person. Bigger, even. I had only known Mom for a little while when we had to hunt it down.”

“Did she like you back then?”

“No, she thought I was crazy. She was always telling me, ‘That’s unbelievable, Mulder.’”

Audrey giggles. “Did you like her?”

“Of course I did.”

He hadn’t known it back them, but he was pretty sure that case _was_ when he’d fallen for Scully, although he didn’t realize it until years later. Who else would dedicate themselves to catching a giant flukeman?

Audrey’s breathing has slowed and when Mulder looks down at her, he’s sure she’s fallen asleep. She doesn’t particularly look like either of them. When they went to Maggie’s house for Audrey’s first Christmas, Bill even “jokingly” suggested to Mulder that he demand a paternity test, unaware that Scully had administered one _herself_ as soon as she gave birth, to make sure nobody tampered with the results in case the baby had somehow been implanted or Scully had unknowingly been impregnated by somebody other than Mulder. Luckily, neither of those were the case. Scully’s said that Audrey’s eyes are just like Mulder’s, and Audrey’s hair is just a few shades different from Scully’s. Her coppery hair was a surprise until Mulder remembered a grandmother who had died before he was born had red hair, but even with that in mind, Scully said it was extremely rare. Mulder said it was a miracle. Even after six years,

Audrey still feels like a miracle.

Mulder was already shocked when he and Scully managed to actually get married. Even when they were standing in the church and reciting their vows, he was still half-convinced Krycek or some family member brought back from the dead would somehow burst through the door and pull them into some convoluted conspiracy. But when Scully told him she was pregnant a year later, both of them were flabbergasted. It seemed too good to be true, especially after William and Emily. Scully worried throughout her entire pregnancy that they’d lose the baby somehow, so much so they didn’t decorate the nursery with anything other than a crib or think of any names.

The nine months were agonizing. Every bout of morning sickness was painstakingly analyzed, every meal perfectly planned. Scully even went on leave early and put herself on bed rest. Mulder left her case files when he went to work in the morning and got in the bed to go over them with her when he got home.

And then it all worked out. No enemies rose from their graves and no mysterious government official arrived to take the baby away. Audrey was theirs, to take home and spoil since her first breath.

* * *

It’s a lot more enjoyable driving with Mulder that they don’t have to constantly try and deny their growing attraction for each other. Scully remembers one road trip maybe nine years ago, where she was so worried about things getting awkward that she made them listen to one of those stupid tapes that claimed to help you learn French the entire time.

Thankfully, it’s anything but awkward now.

“I’m telling you Scully, once this case is done, all I want is to find a marathon of _Law and Order_ , get drunk on some really cheap wine, and make fun of it.”

“Agreed,” Scully says. “Ugh, is this coffee decaf?”

“It’s better for you,” Mulder says.

“It’s not even worth it,” Scully says sadly, setting her cup down disappointedly.

A phone starts ringing. They both groan. Apparently they’ve been conditioned well.

“It’s mine,” Scully tells him as she takes it out of her pocket.

“Agent Scully, don’t bother driving to headquarters, just get over to Clover Stables now,” Skinner says. “There’s been another murder.”

Noah meets them at the scene, wearing one of his perfectly pressed suits, complete with a burgundy turtleneck underneath, rather than the collared shirt and tie most agents spring for, wire-frame glasses perched on his nose. Scully is almost reminded of Mulder when she first met him, completely unaware of all of the attention he got from female secretaries and agents. To her, Mulder is still just as attractive, if not more, now that she appreciates his mind for all it’s worth (and now that she’s managed to slowly replace all his ties without him noticing). Privately, she’s sometimes glad Noah goes out of his way to come to scenes with them just so he can take some of the focus off of Mulder, even though she’s sure that after all these years, she doesn’t have to worry about him abandoning her. Sure enough, a female cop eyes Noah as he walks Scully and Mulder to the stables, explaining what he’s found out.

“The name of the victim is Jesse Dayton. He owned the stables. Chase McGuire is the one who found him. She does all the upkeep with the stables and actually works with the horses.”

“What makes us think it was the Strongman’s doing?” Scully asks.

“Some more shattered doors and, get this, a shattered lock,” Noah says.

Jesse Dayton’s body is laying haphazardly on the floor of the stables. There’s a small pool of blood surrounding his head, but it looks relatively undisturbed.

“Some minor bruising, but healing indicates it was pre-mortem. Probably just an occupational hazard. It looks like he’s in his mid forties,” Scully says as she bends down to examine the body.

“So age probably isn’t a link between the two murder victims,” Mulder says.

“One shot through the head again,” Scully says. “The blood’s not even dry.”

Mulder’s phone dings and he checks it. “Looks like Skinner’s just realized what texting is. There’s been another murder.”

Scully looks up from the body and grimaces.

“Noah, how about you go ahead and secure the scene? We’ll finish up here and then follow you. Skinner says it's at the Waverly Hotel.” Mulder says.

Noah nods. “Of course. See you later, guys!”

He leaves, and Mulder and Scully go over to Chase, a strong looking woman wearing flannel and jeans. Her brow is furrowed in worry.

Scully clears her throat. “What can you tell us about the victim?”

“Well,” Chase starts. “Jesse hated horses.”

“He owned a stable,” Scully says, confused.

“Well, yeah. But he hated them. And they hated him right back. You saw all the bruises they gave him.”

“So why did he start Clover Stables?”

“He liked the nature part, but he didn’t like hiking or anything. And he didn’t want to farm. I guess he thought he could enjoy the outdoors here, but do the business side.”

“Was he well-liked?”

Chase laughs. “Nah. I didn’t like him myself. He was grumpy. I’m sure he was just lonely though. And he was great at getting people to come. I make more here than I have at any other stable.”

“When did you find the body?” Mulder asks her.

“About twenty minutes ago, when I got to work. Jesse liked to come early and check things over. The horses are all spooked. Wait, you think it’s a serial killer, right?”

“It seems that way,” Scully tells her. “Why?”

“He stole a damn horse, too. A good one at that. He’s not going to kill her, is he?”

Mulder and Scully give each other a look that they both know translates to, “let’s walk away and discuss this”.

“This guy is really reckless. I mean, what is he playing at, stealing a horse?” Scully says.

“I agree. He probably doesn't care about caught, he just wants to-” Mulder breaks off.

“What is it?” Scully asks, her eyes lighting up. She knows that look. Mulder’s got an idea.

“He just wants to get it done with as soon as he finds someone that meets his criteria. He's not enjoying this. We already know that. He shoots his victims once, and his kidnapping victims weren’t even kept a day.”

“I think you're right, Mulder. The only question is, why kill at all then?”

They stand there, thinking for a moment, then walk back over to Chase.

“How could you transport a horse?” Scully asks her.

“Well, we have a truck for delivering horses we’ve sold out there. I’ll take you to it.”

They follow her out of the stables into a small gravel parking lot, but there’s nothing there.

Chase clucks her tongue. “He’s a criminal triple threat. A serial killer, a thief, and a carjack, too.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! I've been seriously doubting my writing capabilities this week, but I'm trying to work through it, partially by posting this. A comment or kudos would absolutely be wonderful if you enjoy this, which I hope you do! This chapter's a pretty major one.

“How do you think Skinner picks who to contact about case developments?” Mulder asks Scully as they drive to The Waverly Hotel.

“Probably whoever he’s least annoyed at that moment,” she says.

“Maybe he just clicks a number at random. He can’t miss. I mean, you know we’re his only contacts.”

“That can’t be right. Even you have more than that,” she jokes. She intended it to be a joke, at least. It comes off slightly harsh to her ears.

“Hilarious, Scully.”

An silence passes over them for a few minutes as they listen to a cloyingly sweet pop song. It's obnoxious, really. Scully closes her eyes and puts her head against the window in an attempt to drown it out. She’s suddenly exhausted, finding herself missing the days when she was younger and could stay up all night working. It’s not fair to herself to expect that she work the same she did when she first started at the FBI, but it’s frustrating having to feel herself slowing down, especially when this this case requires perfect investigating. 

Mulder glances over at her after the song ends. “Everything okay, Scully?”

“What? Oh, I'm fine,” she says, quickly opening her eyes. 

“Really? You looked annoyed about something.”

It still amazes her how persistent (ly irritating) he can be sometimes. 

“Mulder, I'm fine!”

He looks at her again and frowns. “Scully, I’d hoped we’re past the point where you think you have to seem impenetrable. You don't have to hide your feelings for me, okay? Just tell me what's bothering you.” 

He takes a hand off the steering wheel and puts it over hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze. She opens hers up and takes his, giving a squeeze back. 

“We’re on the same team, Dana. Remember that.”

“I know, Mulder, I'm sorry. I think I'm just a little fatigued. It's hard having such an unpredictable case, you know? And now, with this death so close to the last one at the stables, I'm worried our killer is going to go on a spree to get whatever it is that he’s trying to achieve done as soon as possible. We know he doesn't care about getting caught. And because we still don't the connection, we can't warn anybody.” 

“I understand, but you said it yourself, remember? This isn’t our entire life. At the end of the day, we've done all we can.”

“You’re right. I’m trying. I just worry that maybe I’m not the best person to be on the case,” she admits, picking bits of lint off her skirt to avoid looking at Mulder.

He sounds genuinely offended she’d suggest that. “What?”

“Just—because it’s not our life anymore, we’re not giving the victims the thorough investigation they deserve. I know that’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it.”

She’s always been confident of her abilities, but recently, Scully has been worried that there may be other agents better suited to the X-Files now. Noah, for example. She loves him, and feels protective of him even though he’s not technically assigned to them. But he can do what she no longer can: devote himself fully to the case. Scully knows it’s not healthy to actually do so, and she knows she just comforted Mulder by reassuring him they were good parents because they assigned so much work to other people. There’s just a small part of her, one that only appears in stressful times like this, that insists that she should be reading over the notes again to see if there’s something she missed instead of spending an hour watching TV, that if she pushed herself harder, maybe there wouldn’t be another victim.

“I feel the same way sometimes,” Mulder says. “It’s hard to let go of something that was our sole focus for years. But last time I checked, we still have the highest solve rate of any FBI division.”

“We do. Noah told me he checked a couple days ago. And I know you’re right about this, too. We were so involved before that it’s hard to remember that the amount of time we spent on cases wasn’t normal.”

“See? We’re both feeling better now. But Scully, remember to tell me when you feel like that so I can help you.”

“Even after all this time, I still feel like something will change if I’m honest with you sometimes.” Scully laughs, embarrassed she ever thought Mulder would judge her for her worry.

“We’ve gone through too much for that to happen. We’re stuck with each other now.”

“And you’re all the better for it,” she teases, before adding, “As I am.”

Just like that, things seem alright again. 

“How about after this case ends, we go on a nice vacation?” Mulder asks. “We deserve a break.”

“Audrey’s been talking about Disney World. Maybe we could go down for Florida for a week,” Scully offers.

“Alright, but after that we have to start planning that nice vacation,” Mulder says. 

Scully laughs. A stupid joke from Mulder usually proves to be the best way to re-energize her. 

“Maybe we could go to some other part of Florida afterwards. The Everglades, or something. Key West.” 

“That sounds nice.”

Another silence settles in, this time a comfortable one. It lasts until Scully asks, “Hey Mulder, who would win in a fight? Meryl Streep or Skinner?”

“Who would win in a fight?” is a time-honored tradition between the two of them. It was born years before in the last rental car the lot had to offer, littered with a seemingly endless supply of beer bottle caps and cheeto dust, while Mulder and Scully were on a stakeout. Like most good ideas, the words had slipped out of her mouth without her realizing: “Hey Mulder, who would win in a fight? Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise?” In her defense, she was exhausted and had fallen asleep to a bad action movie the night before, but after Mulder laughed at her for a few seconds, they got into an intense debate about the right answer. Since then, the two competitors have ranged from actresses, football players, Olympic skiing teams, and various coworkers and relatives. The only rules are that one, they can only play it with each other; two, they have to be the only people around; and three, Skinner always has to fight in the first round and lose.

“Oh, that’s such a hard one. You know, I think I’d have to bet on Meryl,” he says, pretending to ponder Meryl Streep’s fighting capability.

They spend the rest of the ride debating over Susan Sarandon and Meg Ryan’s chances of knowing karate, until they pull into The Waverly Hotel’s parking lot.

Their car looks completely out of place, with the “ironic” bumper stickers that Scully and Mulder get each other as gag gifts plastered on it (“Honk if you love Tolstoy!”, “Keep Portland Weird”, “I brake for aliens”). The rest of the cars are also far more expensive than theirs, with compact forms and sleek, glossy exteriors, because The Waverly Hotel is the kind of place Scully’s mother would call “swanky”. The lobby is large enough that it takes a good forty seconds for the two of them to walk over to the reception desk, Scully’s heels clacking against the elegant white tiles. A polished woman wearing a black pantsuit and red lipstick is waiting for them at the reception desk.

“Check-in isn’t until twelve,” she says. “But you’re welcome to enjoy lunch in our restaurant before then. What name is it under?”

“Oh, you’ve misunderstood, Margot,” Scully explains, reading off her name tag. “We’re with the FBI. I’m Agent Scully and this is Agent Mulder.”

“Pardon me,” Margot says. “The, umm, unfortunate scene is set in Room 212.” 

They thank her and ride a lavender-scented elevator to the second floor. Noah’s voice floats down the hall.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Reynolds, we’ll be out of your hair in just a few minutes. I know it’s all a little  _ ugh _ ,” he vocalizes. “But Agent Scully and Agent Mulder are the best at what they do.”

Mrs. Reynolds, apparently the owner of the hotel, nods her head briskly. “Is that them?”

“Sure is,” Noah says. 

Mrs. Reynolds says something like, “I’m glad  _ you _ know what pressure I’m under, Agent Price,” as Mulder and Scully get to Room 212.

“Uh, I already interviewed everybody and collected most of the evidence,” Noah explains. “Not like there was much. But I left the body so Agent Scully could have a look.”

Mulder looks at Scully, silently asking her what she thinks, and she smiles. “Thanks, Noah. That makes things a lot easier for us.”

Noah lets out a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. I realized halfway through that you guys might be mad that I did most of your work. You can re interview anybody if you want to, though.”

“No, I doubt we’ll need to. We can just review your notes,” Scully tells him.

“I heard there’s a restaurant here?” Mulder asks Mrs. Reynolds, who scoffs.

“My guests are worried enough about this death as is. The last thing they need is for people like you to come in and discuss it, especially two people who so clearly look FBI agents.”

Scully and Mulder both look down at their clothes in confusion.

“That sucks,” Noah says, running a hand through his dark, wavy hair. “One of my friends was telling me he took his girlfriend here for a night and they had a killer dinner here. I was really looking forward to trying it out.” 

“Well, we could put you at a private table, I suppose,” Mrs. Reynolds says, appeased.

“Thanks!” Noah says, a wide smile overtaking his face. “We’ll be right down, as soon as Agent Scully takes a look at the body.”

Mrs. Reynolds exits, and Noah leads Scully and Mulder through Room 212’s empty door frame into the spacious hotel suite. 

“The CSI guys cleaned up all the shattered pieces,” Noah explains, somewhat unnecessarily. Scully concludes he’s nervous to go through the first crime scene they let him lead. 

“And nobody heard the sound of that or a gunshot?” Mulder asks.

“Nope. I thought it was impossible, too, but apparently they spent a ton of money making the walls soundproof here. Mrs. Reynolds said a lot of politicians stay here when they come to ‘discuss policy’.” Noah makes quotations with his hands, and Mulder and Scully both laugh. It’s still amazing how perceptive he is when something doesn’t take place in his personal life. 

The victim’s body is laying on the bathroom floor. She’s wearing one of the hotel’s bathrobes, and a open bottle of toothpaste and toothbrush are sitting on the counter above her.

“Her name is Jill Cartney. A guest saw the missing door on their way back from the pool and called police at around ten this morning,” Noah says as Scully takes a brief onceover of the body. 

“Death occurred less than an hour or two ago,” she says. “Our man must have raced from Clover Stables to get here.”

“Anything unusual?” Mulder asks.

“Not really. Looks like she was in here brushing her teeth when the killer snuck up behind her and shot her in the back of the head.” She stands. “What do you say we go get lunch? Noah can tell us the rest while we eat.”

Mulder and Noah agree, so they go back down to the first floor, where they’re seated at a secluded table in the hotel’s steakhouse, which is the kind of upscale place that has menus without prices.

“The last person to see Ms. Cartney was the receptionist, Margot. She said she checked in at seven last night and went straight to her room,” Noah starts.

“Anything else Margot noticed?” Mulder asks.

“She said Ms. Cartney told her she was here on business and wouldn’t need any special amenities. Oh, and that she had a British accent.”

“And she didn’t leave her room at all once she checked in?”

“Me and the guys asked around, but nobody saw anything.”

Noah pauses as the waitress, a young and somewhat familiar-looking blonde, comes by to take their order. 

Scully does a quick mental scan to see where she recognizes the face, eventually settling on the image of a teary college student. “Wait, Leslie Calway?” 

Leslie nods cheerily. “Yep! It’s me. I know it’s probably totally hard to tell, since last time you saw me I was a total mess.”

Now that her eyes aren’t puffy from crying and her face is clear of all the runny eye makeup, it’s easy to understand why Noah is blushing at the sight of her.

“How’s Natalie holding up?” Mulder asks.

“She’s handling it like a pro. I know this sounds kind of strange, but we both agree that her kidnapping helped us to realize how much we cared about each other.” Leslie giggles. “I know you don’t usually move in with someone after the first date, but we were already living with each other!” 

She gives another small laugh and poor Noah looks even more endeared. 

“I can’t thank you guys enough for helping. I should probably take your orders though, so I don’t lose my job.”

Noah orders a steak, while Mulder and Scully both get salmon salads. Ever since Audrey was born, and even while Scully was pregnant, Mulder’s been on a serious health kick that Scully theorizes has something to do with the fact that they’re older than many of the parents in Audrey’s class. She’s never brought it up, but privately, she is immensely taken in by it, although it’s sometimes sweeter in theory than in practice, especially when he gets decaf coffees for them or when she orders a salad at a steakhouse. 

Leslie takes their orders and leaves, Noah’s face flashing with recognition an entire minute after she leaves. “Aw, damn it,” he says.

“You have plenty of other options,” Mulder says, patting him on the back. “Mrs. Reynolds, for example.”

Noah puts his face in his hands. “It’s just that my dating life has sucked ever since I joined the FBI.”

“Mine did too,” Scully laughs. “I think I went on maybe four dates the first five years.”

“How did you survive?” Noah asks, a hint of panic in his rising voice.

“It sort of turned out that Mulder and I had been going on dates the entire time and just hadn’t realized it.”

Noah takes a swig of the complimentary water like he wishes it was something stronger and continues reading his notes. 

“I checked Jill Cartney’s Twitter. It said she was a reporter from London here to do a story on American and British relations, which kind of made me think of a theory, if you’re interested.”

“Of course,” Scully says, shocked that Noah feels the need to preface what will most likely be a helpful analysis so clearly. 

“I think the killer may be using the internet to find victims that match whatever criteria he has. Articles, social media profiles, something like that.”

“I hate to sound ignorant here, but Twitter? How could you use that to find victims?” Mulder asks.

Scully just shakes her head in response. “This is kind of depressing, Mulder. I have no idea either.” 

Noah, thankfully, pulls out his phone to demonstrate. “So recently Twitter started this feature called hashtagging. If you post a picture of your dog and want it get more retweets, you could press the pound sign and type the word dogs, which makes it a hashtag. Then if anybody searches for dogs or clicks on another post with ‘hashtag dogs’ your post would come up.”

“Ok,” Scully says. “Michael Smith was probably at least partially chosen for his gun. We checked his social media accounts, but I guess we weren’t looking for that. Do you think maybe he posted something with ‘hashtag guns’ or something similar?”

“I’ll check,” Noah offers. He spends a few minutes scrolling, then turns his phone towards Scully and Mulder. “Is this him? There are a ton of Michael Smiths.”

Mulder nods, and Noah only has to search for a few seconds more before he shows them a picture of a huge buffet featuring what looks like fresh venison. The post is captioned “ _ nine deer shot by me and the fam today, one per sib! #bigfamilyperks  #hunting _ ”. 

“What qualities could he have searched for to get Michael, or any of the victims, to come up?” Scully asks Noah,

“He just had to put in a search for tweets sent from around D.C.. Then he probably picked the first person that came up when he searched a certain hashtag,” he explains. 

Leslie drops off their meals a couple minutes later and they pause to eat, so their surprisingly very good and probably very expensive salads aren’t spoiled by talk of murder.

They resume their search in their basement afterwards. Mulder and Scully each take a computer and scroll through victim’s profiles trying to find hashtags that Noah searches on another computer to see if their post comes up as one of the first results.

It takes Scully a while to find the post they’re looking for on Natalie Betting’s account, but eventually a tweet from when she was in high school that reads “ _ first meeting of the chastity club is today! #virginandproud _ ”. She also finds a retweeted tweet from Natalie and Leslie’s friend Emily that says “ _ Dr. Larke is soooooo boring #badprofessors _ ”. 

Mulder finds that Jesse Dayton’s account for the stables mostly just posted pictures of horses with a  _ #horses _ . 

Jill Cartney’s defining hashtag is a little trickier, but they eventually decide the killer searched for a tweet posted from London that said something about coming to D.C. Sure enough, Jill recently posted a picture of her luggage at the London airport captioned with #DCbound.

“So, to recap, Michael Smith was killed because he was one of nine children and because he had a gun, Natalie Betting was kidnapped because she was a virgin, Dr. Edward Larke was kidnapped because he was boring, Jesse Dayton was killed for having a horse, and Jill Cartney was killed because she was from London,” Scully lists.

“I still can’t see any connection,” Mulder says, frowning.

“Neither can I. Maybe we just need to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow.”

Noah logs off the computer. “I’ll do some research at home and text you guys if I find anything.”

“Don’t do anything extra on our behalf,” Scully says. 

“No, I want to,” Noah protests.

He packs up his bag and leaves with a wave goodbye.

* * *

Scully’s wearing his old FBI Academy shirt and a pair of lacy shorts that disappear underneath it as she washes her face before bed. Mulder doesn’t know what he did to deserve getting in bed with Dana Scully every night, but he’ll take it. 

He remembers the days where he felt lucky if he caught a glimpse of her brushing her teeth in the hotel room adjacent to his when they were discussing a case, or if they had a meal in an actual restaurant on a case. That was enough fuel for months of daydreams about a world where he brought Scully home to meet his mother, went out for dinner with her in trendy places around D.C., and got to watch her entire nightly routine from his place on their shared bed. The dreams which plagued him at night were too forbidden to ever even acknowledge in the light of day: flashes of soft skin and red hair tickling his neck and chest.

“Ugh,” Scully exclaims as she gets into bed beside him, jolting him out of his thoughts. “Mulder, there are sunflower shells in the bed! How did they even get here?”

“They just sort of appear wherever I go,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m sure the aliens are using them as a tracking device,” she says sharply, using her hands to push the shells to the floor without having to get up, a gesture that’s so strangely endearing that Mulder laughs.

“What?” Scully asks softly, rolling over to face him. All the annoyance on her face is gone, replaced by a tired smile.

“I just love you, that’s all.”

“I love you too,” she says, and he knows she means it.

They lay there quietly, enjoying the company of somebody who loves them. It’s something they say as often as possible. There’s probably an unconscious fear behind it, that this will be their last chance to say it before the other is ripped from them so many times before, but there’s also a simpler explanation: it’s nice to hear. 

“You know, Mulder, all this hashtagging is making me feel old,” Scully says after a few minutes. “And you used to be the king of online chatrooms! What happened?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say the king,” he protests. “And we’re not old.”

She looks different, of course. Everyone does. There are some gray hairs speckled throughout her hair; her face is thinner, with creases around her mouth and eyes. But she’s Scully. There hasn’t been a single day Mulder’s known her that she hasn’t been beautiful. And most importantly, even without all of that, she’s still the woman who chases after murderers with no fear, who trudges through disgusting conditions to catch monsters, who still isn’t over Queequeg’s death, who named her dog Queequeg in the first place. All those things are why Mulder fell in love with her in the first place. So maybe they say, “I love you,” so often because it’s the best to get all of that across. 

“Don’t worry though,” Mulder continues. “We’re going to be chasing X-Files until we die and become X-Files ourselves, Scully.”

“Yes, the horrifying ghost who haunts a basement nobody goes to and works all day writing reports nobody reads. That’s what we do anyways.”

“That might be turning me on a little, Scully,” he says, only half-teasing.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, leaning over to kiss him anyways. 

Her eyes widen when he deepens it, tugging on her bottom lip as he moves a hand down to the waist of her pajama shorts.

“Damn it, Mulder!” Scully says. She sounds a little annoyed.

He lifts his hands up instantly. “What?”

“No, I think I’ve got it. Why the killer picked those victims.” She jumps up from the bed and goes out of their bedroom.

“What is it, Scully?” Mulder whispers as he follows her past Audrey’s room to their office.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier,” she mutters as she hurriedly types something into the computer. 

Mulder leans in to see an article about Hercules on the computer’s screen.

“It all makes sense!” Scully turns to him, a wide smile on her face. “What you said about ghosts made me think of a myth I read when I was a kid. Hercules completed twelve labors as a penance for killing his wife and children after Hera cursed him with temporary madness. His first labor was to kill the Nemean Lion. Or in this case, the D.C. zoo lion.”

“He also had super strength, right?” 

Scully nods. “The killer must see himself as some form of Hercules. Maybe that somehow prompted him to gain extreme strength, either truly supernaturally or superficially by utilizing some kind of illusion.”

“Do the other labors fit?”

“I think they do,” Scully says. “Although some are very loose, obviously. There’s a real lack of nine-headed Hydras running around to slay.”

“There are ninth children though,” Mulder says. “But it says Hercules killed it by trapping it in a cave.”

“The closet Michael Smith was found locked in must have been a symbol for it. Leaving him to suffocate or starve would probably have been more accurate, but our killer is all about finishing this as soon as possible. Then Hercules captured a hind and a boar, which explains why Natalie Betting and Edward Larke were kidnapped rather than being killed.”

“A hind?”

“It’s a deer,” Scully explains. “This particular one was apparently beloved by Artemis, a virgin goddess. And of course, Natalie Betting was a virgin as well.” She gives a short laugh. “And Dr. Larke, our boar.”

“Our killer is a real wordsmith,” Mulder jokes. “The boar is boring.”

“The fifth labor was to clean the Augean Stables. Clover Stables hadn’t been cleaned though.”

“Did Hercules kill the owner of it, then?”

Scully reads the paragraph underneath a picture of a menacing-looking horse and nods. “He did! And then he killed some man-eating birds. That was Jill Cartney.”

“How was she man-eating?” Mulder questions. “She had a good job? Didn’t cook and clean all day?”

“That’s very progressive of you,” Scully says, reaching out and taking his hand. “But she was only chosen because she was from London, remember?”

Scully furrows her brow and they sit in thought until Mulder realizes he does know why Jill Cartney was chosen.

“Uh,” he starts sheepishly, “I just remembered that in the U.K., ‘bird’ is sometimes used as a slang term for women. Usually kind of offensive.” 

“Mulder, that’s amazing! You’ve been watching your  _ Prime Suspect _ , clearly.”

Mulder nods, deciding it’s probably best he doesn’t admit he picked it up from late night U.K. Big Brother marathons.

“So what’s our killer going to do next?” he asks her.

“Hercules captured the Cretan Bull and then another man-eating animals, this time a horse. That’s probably why he stole the horse from Clover Stables. But what will represent the bull?”

“I’m not sure. He may be trying to throw law enforcement off his track by intentionally picking victims that are only somewhat connected to the original myth, although it also suggests he at least somewhat enjoys being clever by finding these connections. The horse was probably taken just because of its convenience, because it does seem like the killer feels like he must finish this task,” Mulder says, becoming more sure of what he’s saying as he goes on.

Scully claps her hands together and leans off of the rolling chair she’s sitting on. “So you think he is doing this as some sort of penance?”

“I don’t think the super strength would have come onto him if he wasn’t. Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to interfere in our investigation in an attempt to slow us down so we don’t catch him before he’s completed all twelve labors.”  

“Alright, you call Noah and see if he has any ideas about this bull. I’ll call Skinner and let him know what we’ve found out so far,” Scully says, already getting up to grab her phone from the bedroom. 

She’s saying, “Yes, we think he may be attempting to make up for murdering his wife and children,” when Mulder joins her in the bedroom. He hits Noah’s contact and waits for him to pick him up, but all he gets is the answering machine. He tries again and gets the same result. 

If Scully wasn’t picking up, he’d already have finished calling Skinner, 911, and any FBI agents he could reach. But Noah isn’t technically a member of the X-Files, and even if he was, he isn’t obligated to return their calls. He’s probably just asleep. Unless—

“Damn it!” he exclaims as he remembers something Noah brought up in conversation one of the first times they met. 

Scully turns to look at him and instantly tells Skinner, “I’ve got to go,” then hangs up. If he wasn’t so worried, he’d comment on how perfectly in-sync they are.

“Scully, Noah isn’t picking up.”

She purses her lips and walks over to where Mulder is standing.

“Maybe he’s in bed and left his phone downstairs. Or he’s out at a loud club, he’s young,” Scully offers, her voice faltering.

“Do you remember what Noah’s birthday is?”

“Of course, don’t you? It’s April twenty-second—Oh,  _ fuck _ !”

Mulder nods miserably. “He’s a Taurus. The bull.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Queequeg :(
> 
> Feel free to come and chat with me on my tumblr, @lilyevcans, and please, please leave any requests for this universe you may have (on Tumblr or in the comments)! I'm thinking of maybe doing a collection of shorter stories or something after this finishes?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, but it's pretty intense and plot-based. I promise there's some more married Mulder and Scully next chapter if that's more your thing, but for now, enjoy the action (and a Skinner appearance!).

“Hercules didn’t kill the bull in the myth, he just captured it,” Mulder tries to reason as they run out of their house, Audrey in his arms.

“Yeah, Hercules didn’t shoot any of the monsters either!” 

Scully grips the railing as they go down the front steps, trying to steady herself. The killer may be trying to slow their investigation by keeping Noah for an extended amount of time so the FBI will use most of its resources trying to find one of their own. She makes one of those hard promises to herself: she won’t let more people be killed by getting too wrapped up in finding Noah. Scully knows for a fact Noah would be horrified so many people were looking for him when there had just been such a big break in the case, but she’s still loathe to make the promise to herself. 

She tries to make herself focus on the next Herculean labor, but there’s so much adrenaline to push away that she can’t think of anything more than the task at hand.

“Are we taking this one to your mom’s?” Mulder asks, jerking his head towards Audrey. Her face is still, completely unaware of the stress her parents are under. 

Scully nods, before a realization causes her stomach to plummet another ten levels. “Mulder, we can’t. Mom is visiting my aunt in Albany.”

“Shit!” 

Audrey stirs in his arms, and Mulder manages to smile as she looks up at him. “You didn’t hear me say that, Addie.” 

Audrey nods sleepily and buries her face into his arm. She’s in her favorite pajamas, a light pink matching set printed with tiny strawberries that are almost the exact color of her hair. She looks tiny snuggled up next to Mulder.

Scully hastily ticks off options in her head. Skinner has babysat for them before, but obviously that’s not an option, as Scully’s already informed him they believe Noah was kidnapped and he’s out leading the search. Any other agents they’re friendly with are also searching for Noah. Bill and Tara are in San Diego. She and Mulder are friends with some of the parents in Audrey’s class, but none of them close enough to dignify barging into their house in the middle of the night and demanding that they watch Audrey. Alright, maybe she and Mulder need to make more friends. Finally, she remembers her conversation with Natalie Betting.

“Ok, this is slightly unprofessional, but Natalie Betting offered to babysit when I found her in that McDonald's.”

“Sure,” Mulder agrees quickly. “She’s only about five minutes away.”

He pulls Audrey close before reluctantly setting her in her car seat, buckling her in, and climbing into the driver’s seat. Scully calls Natalie as Mulder shoots out of the driveway, so fast she snaps back in her seat.

“Hello?” Natalie asks, her voice surprisingly perky for a call coming so late at night.

“Hi Natalie, this is Agent Scully. I hate to ask this of you so late, but would you be willing to watch Audrey for a few hours? It’s urgent. I promise we’ll pay you at least double of what you usually make babysitting.”

Natalie laughs. “Wait, if it’s urgent, I probably shouldn’t be laughing. Leslie and I will happily watch her, don’t worry. Where are you?” 

Scully looks out her window and sees the Georgetown dorms, suddenly glad that she was too distracted to be a witness to Mulder’s terrifying “emergency” style of driving.

“We’re, uh, outside your dorm.”

“Damn!” Natalie shouts. “Sorry! I promise I won’t swear in front of your kid. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

Scully unbuckles Audrey out of her car seat and scoops her up into her arms, running into the front lobby, where Natalie and Leslie are somehow already waiting.

“She’s so cute!” Leslie coos.

“You can probably just put her into bed, she’s a good sleeper. If she wakes up scared or anything, it’s easy to find something online. She likes  _ Scooby Doo _ a lot, the old ones,” Scully says, feeling herself ramble slightly.

Natalie nods dutifully, her eyebrows raised slightly in concern. “Is everything alright, Agent Scully?”

Scully looks down her clothes, Mulder’s ratty t-shirt and the sweatpants she threw on to replace the pajama shorts she was wearing earlier. Now that she thinks about it, the sweatpants may be Mulder’s too, judging from way the bottoms are dragging on the ground. Back in the car, Mulder is wearing a similar ensemble. They threw on the first things they could find.

“They just need our help at work,” Scully says as breezily as possible, looking at down at Audrey to indicate that while she is obviously not fine, she doesn’t want Audrey to hear and get scared. Natalie’s mouth makes a silent “oh” sound, and she nods again.

Scully passes Audrey to Natalie and squeezes her small hand tightly. “Addie, Dad and I have to go help our friend, but Natalie and Leslie are going to be here watching you until we get back, ok?” 

Audrey rubs at her eyes, but squeezes her hand back. “Ok, Mama.”

“I love you. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Scully mouths a thank you to Leslie and Natalie, then turns and runs back out to the waiting car. She’s barely buckled her seat belt before Mulder presses the gas.

“Logically, Noah’s probably going to be dropped off at the same McDonald from before in a few hours. The killer has shown he doesn’t put much thought into the crimes,” Scully pants as soon as they start driving, trying to calm herself by taking deep breaths. “And we’ve got Skinner and tons of other agents already there.”

“That’s what he wants us to think, Scully! All of his crimes required research, planning!”

“I know! I’m just trying to calm you down!”

They meet each other’s eyes in the car mirror and Scully gives a mirthful laugh. “Sorry. I’m just so stressed.”

“It’s amazing how protective I feel of him,” Mulder says, looking down and realizing his knuckles are white from how hard he’s gripping the steering wheel. “He’s not even an official member of the X-Files.” He pauses, his brow furrowing. “Wait. He’s not an official member of the X-Files. The killer’s trying to slow the investigation, but how did he know Noah’s helping us?”

“Do you have a Twitter account?” Scully asks. “We could check.”

Mulder laughs. “What do you think?”

“I don’t have one either. But wait, doesn’t Noah? He opened it at lunch to explain how hashtags work.”

“You’re right!” Mulder says. “See if you can find it.”

Scully whips out her phone and searches for Twitter, clicking on the first result. Instantly, an ad pops up. “No, I don’t want to create an account, Twitter!” she mutters, trying to find the way to x out. One minute of frantically searching profiles of different Noah Prices goes by, then two. Finally, she finds an account with the username “agent$$$” and a picture of Noah holding a Starbucks cup as the icon. 

“I found it!” She gasps when she sees he has more than eight hundred followers, but as she scrolls through his posts, it becomes clear why. Noah’s tweets are  the kind of witty observations he makes all throughout the day when he works a case with them. She groans a minute later when she comes across a picture he posted.  “Oh, Noah, you didn’t.” She turns her phone towards Mulder. “He posted a picture of us two years ago.”

The picture in question is of Mulder and Scully, apparently mid-argument, trying to fix a projector so Mulder can show Noah details from a reported alien abduction of two teens in Concord. That case in particular had turned out to be a misfire (a prom house and a bong was involved), but it was Noah’s first time helping them on a case, which is the only reason Scully remembers it so vividly. He’d come to the basement a few weeks before with some papers from Skinner, as he was assigned to a case being transferred to them, but he’d been drawn in when he heard Mulder and Scully discussing a woman who slept through a fire that burnt her house down and managed to survive. He started coming by every couple of days after that, asking questions about the woman and other investigations he’d heard other agents talking about.

Mulder and Scully had both been extremely suspicious of him, but after a few months, they decided to try out having him help on a case. Neither of them had been involved in any conspiracies for the past few years and word of Noah’s genius was already starting to spread. After Noah willingly went undercover at the high school the abduction reportedly took place at, they figured they could trust him.

“Did he hashtag it?” Mulder asks as he pulls into the McDonald's parking lot.

Scully nods. “Hashtag ‘inside the FBI’, hashtag ‘your tax dollars at work’ and then a winking emoji, and hashtag ‘the x-files’. If you search for the X-Files, it’s the first post to come up.” 

Mulder pulls into the McDonald's parking lot, where a nonplussed employee is talking with Skinner. Beside them stands a cream-colored horse.

“You see that too, right?” Mulder asks, rubbing his eyes and Scully nods. Things like that barely even register now on the scale of weird things she’s seen.

“I guess we found the stolen horse,” she says.

They get out of the car and join Skinner, who, though dressed in his typical neatly pressed suit, looks exhausted and grumpy, which the smell of horse is probably not helping with.

“Got anything for us?” Mulder asks him.

“Noah apparently had a date tonight,” Skinner says gruffly. “The girl called after we put out an alert. She says he wasn’t in his apartment when she came at the agreed time, eight.”

“And he said his love life was lacking” Mulder says absentmindedly. “A date at his apartment sounds pretty serious.”

Skinner sighs and looks down at the ground longingly, like he wishes he could sink into it. “Maybe date wasn’t the right word, Agent Mulder.”

“Oh— _ oh _ .”

“I think there are apps for that now, Mulder,” Scully says, trying to suppress her laughter by covering her mouth with her hand. 

“And how do you know that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teases, winking at him when Skinner changes tactics by looking up at the sky and sighing loudly.

“Anyways,” Skinner continues when he’s successfully reconsidered the choices that led him to this moment. “It’s twelve thirty now, and the last people to see Agent Price were you two. When did he leave work?”

“Probably about five,” Scully answers. “That’s a big window. Did he leave his car at work?”

“It’s missing.”

“Great,” she says. Mulder squares his shoulders.

“Scully, you go to Noah’s apartment and see if you can find anything,” Mulder says. “Skinner and I will stay here and horse-sit. Maybe we can even get a free ride while we wait.”

* * *

The supervisor of Noah’s apartment complex is fast asleep when Scully walks in. She raps on their desk to no avail, eventually taking a heavy manual next to them and dropping it beside his face.

“What?” he asks groggily.

“I’m Agent Dana Scully,” she says, flashing her ID. “I’m looking into a kidnapping I believe may have happened here. Which apartment does Noah Price live in?”

“From the FBI?”

Scully nods impatiently. “Yes, we’re both FBI agents. Which apartment is his?”

“126.”

“You didn’t happen to notice anything unusual tonight, did you?”

“Nope.” He lays his head down and Scully clears her throat.

“Can I have the key to get in?”

The supervisor groans as he rummages around in a desk drawer as Scully taps her foot trying to hurry him, before finally pulling out an envelope marked with the correct number.

She hastily grabs it and walks to the stairs, which she figures may be faster, but there’s a huge sign proclaiming “Stairs are BROKEN”.

“Excuse me?” Scully asks, turning around to address the supervisor again. “How can the stairs be broken?”

The supervisor looks around wildly. “Uh—”

“You know what? It’s fine. I’ll just take the elevator.”

The elevator is a far cry from the lavender-scented one at The Waverly Hotel, but it goes quickly enough. Scully leaps out and locates number 129, unlocking it to see Noah’s apartment. It’s a sparsely furnished one-bedroom. The furniture he does have seems to be good quality, indicating he probably just doesn’t care enough to add more, something that doesn’t surprise her in the slightest. 

It’s slightly cramped, so it doesn’t take long to pad around it looking for any signs of a struggle, but it seems similar to the kidnappings at Georgetown in that there’s no evidence. She does, however, find personal touches scattered throughout: a picture of him and his parents hanging on the wall, a Harvard lacrosse team trophy, several opened boxes of cereal sitting in his pantry, a half-read scientific study on his bedside table. The news is still playing on the TV.

Her phone buzzes and she answers it.

“Scully, it’s me,” Mulder says. Now that caller ID exists, they really don’t need to keep starting every phone call with that line, but just like calling each other by their last names, much to the chagrin of most of her family, if she and Mulder stopped doing it, they wouldn’t feel like themselves.

“Have you found him?”

“No, I’m just checking in. Find anything at his apartment?”

“Nothing, and a stampede wouldn’t have woken the supervisor up. I’m heading back right now.”

“Okay, see you in a couple minutes. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Scully says, hanging up. She goes back to the coffee table in the living room, where she left the key, when she hears the door close.

She moves a hand down to where she keeps her gun, but before she can grab it, she feels the unmistakable sensation of having a gun pointed at her. Behind her, a man speaks.

“Hi, Agent Scully. Can you put your gun down for me?”

Something about the voice voice sounds oddly familiar. In fact, she swears she might’ve heard it today. 

Scully turns around and sees him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for Scully kicking some major ass next chapter. I guess that's kind of a spoiler, but obviously she does.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was SO hard to write! Making it make sense and getting all the pieces to fit was a huge pain, but I'm actually pretty happy with how Scully defeats the mystery man.

“Danny Mackerel?”

Before her stands the local news station’s unfortunately named tech expert, brought on for brief segments called “Mackerel’s Tech Minute” twice a week. He looks shockingly normal in a worn AC/DC shirt and jeans, like he could be any dad at kindergarten pickup. Except, of course, his black ski mask is in one hand and Michael Smith’s gun is in the other. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Pretty surprising, huh?” he says. 

“Where’s Noah?” Scully says, as forcefully as she can with a gun pointed at her.

Danny waves a hand. “He's fine. I snatched him from a gas station, and stuck him in a dumpster with his mouth taped. I’m surprised nobody’s seen the car and reported it yet, actually. Enough of that, though. Come on, put your gun down for me.” 

She takes her gun out of its holster and slowly places it on the floor. Now that she’s certain Noah is okay, she can focus all her energy on getting away. 

“How did you find me?” she asks, twisting her voice to make it higher, more innocent. The more she can get him to talk, the more time Mulder has to find her. Danny seems like the kind to want to detail all of his genius, and luckily, it seems like she’s right.

“Come to find out, when you’re in a news van, you can really go wherever you want. I knew you’d all think such a  _ lazy _ criminal would use the same McDonald’s, so I just waited around there until you and your husband showed up and then I followed you here. Nobody even batted an eye.”

Danny laughs, and Scully nods along, trying to egg him on. He narrows his eyes, pausing to consider something, but he just shakes his head slightly.

“Actually, sometimes I wonder if I even need this mask,” Danny continues, gesturing with the hand holding the ski mask. “People never notice me at all. My whole family died and all I got was one dumpy two-minute segment on the news.  _ Lizzie and Kyle _ didn’t even bother with fake tears like they do with all the other kiddies.”

He spits onto the ground after saying the bubbly evening news team’s names, and suddenly Scully remembers a news segment a few months ago where Lizzie and Kyle solemnly asked their viewers to keep Danny Mackerel in their thoughts.

“But  _ you _ killed them,” Scully says, almost not realizing she’s said anything until the words have already left her mouth. She mentally pinches herself, takes a deep breath, and promises herself to keep a cool head. 

Danny takes a step forward and Scully steps backward, feeling her heels hit the wall.

“I did,” he says, shaking his head. “I had to. She found out where all the money was coming from. And the kids, you never know what they know, until a pretty agent like you asks them what happened to their mommy. Then it all comes out. But I’m sorry.”

He jiggles the gun and growls, “I’m going to show everyone how sorry I am.”

Theft. He was stealing from the local news. Just last week, she and Mulder were complaining about how commercials seemed to take up half of the air time, which now makes a lot more sense.

Scully’s disgusted by him, not only for killing completely innocent people so that he can “make up” for his previous murders, but for killing his entire family without hesitation just to cover up him botching the books. The jail time for theft is nothing like what it’ll be for all his crimes now, unless—

The jail time doesn’t matter to him. Who knows what petty reason caused him to kill his family. Maybe his wife asked him to help with the household chores. Maybe he just decided to randomly. He’s tricked everyone, including her and Mulder and the source of his super strength, into thinking the faux labors aren’t enjoyable to him and are a penance, but he’s really getting immense pleasure out of them.

Danny leans closer. It’s been too long since she said anything, and there’s a hunger in his eyes that she needs to stave off. 

Scully internally smiles. She’s got an idea. No matter how Danny got his powers, maybe if he can get Danny to admit the labors are an excuse to murder more, his super strength will disappear and she’ll have a better chance of overpowering him. 

She tries to find something, anything, that will allow for a brief distraction so she can come up with a plan to get him to admit it. Danny mistakes her continued silence for fear, and continues on. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you, Agent Scully. I’m just going to shoot you in the stomach-” He takes the hand holding the hat and pokes deep into her stomach. “Right there. The bullet just needs to knock you out so I can slide your pretty wedding ring off your finger.”

Perfect. She brings her hands behind her back and shivers, trying to make it look like she’s just trying to shrink away from him rather than fleshing out a plan of escape.

“But why do you need my wedding ring?” she asks in the same high pitched voice as she slides the ring off of her finger and hides it in the palm of her hand.

Danny barks out a laugh. “Agent Scully, I really expected more from you after all these years in the FBI. It’s Hippolyta's girdle!”

He looks expectantly at her, and though she knows exactly what he’s talking about, she stares blankly.

Danny sighs. “Queen of the Amazons? I mean, a ring and a girdle aren’t perfect matches, and Hippolyta's father gave the girdle to her, but oh well. I think I can live with some discrepancies. I have to keep it relatively similar though. Hence why I’m not killing you, which would make my job a lot easier.”

She widens her eyes in mock shock. “You're really not going to kill me?”

“I’m not. But—” The hungry look in his eyes in back, like he’s a wolf with a sheep placed right under his nose. “If Agent Mulder takes a little too long to realize what’s happened and rushes in to find you all bled out, that’s his fault, isn’t it? Not mine.”

“And what if he does find me?” Scully asks, probably a little too harshly to sell the fake terror, but she can’t help it when she hears the suggestion that Mulder isn’t a capable agent.

“Then you can say, ‘Danny Mackerel did it!’ and tell Agent Mulder how sorry I am. I’ve got all of the other labors planned out, I don’t care if you all come out looking for me.”

“How do you even know who we are?” she says, blinking a couple times to cause fat tears to roll down her cheeks. 

“I’d never heard of the X-Files until some crime report a month ago,” Danny says. “I did some digging in the archives and on Agent Price’s Twitter and found out you specialize in strange cases. The bizarre, the alien. Figured you’d probably get assigned to what I was going to do, so I just planned around you two.” 

He laughs, but the rest of his face doesn’t laugh with him. “For such a disgraced part of the FBI, you sure show up in the news a lot. Remember Eugene Tooms? That’s the first article I found. You husband is a real stone-cold fox, if you can excuse the pun.”

She knows he’s having fun trying to say the creepiest things he can think of, but his carelessness for human life is actually frightening. She still plays along, knowing he wants a platform to fake guilt over the murders.

“Please, think of him and my daughter,” Scully sobs, wiping her tears away with the hand she’s hiding her ring in, then moving it down to her cover her mouth. She readies herself, and in one gulp, she swallows the ring she and Mulder spent weeks deciding on.

A moment of total silence passes before Danny realizes what she’s done.

“Wait, what did you just do? Did you just swallow—”

Scully raises both hands up as he gets closer to her. There’s no ring. 

Danny roars in anger. “You think you’re clever, huh? I’ll tear it out of you, you bitch!” 

He tosses the gun across the room and grins as he crosses the inches between them, before pouncing on her, knocking her sideways onto Noah’s couch. His fingernails dig deep into her stomach and she gasps in pain, feeling blood start to trickle down onto her pants.

Scully allows herself a second to focus on the pain, then grits her teeth and carries on with her plan, which hinges on the fact that with the ring in her stomach, Danny has to be careful ripping her to shreds so he doesn’t accidentally crush the ring with his extreme strength. It should give her enough time to do what she needs to. If not, she’ll die an extremely slow and painful death.

“You know what I just realized, Danny?” she asks. “You never said their names when you talked about killing them.”

Danny doesn’t stop his task of tearing her apart to acknowledge her, but she continues.

“It almost makes me think you’re not sorry at all.”

He takes a step back subconsciously, and Scully uses the opportunity to adjust her position slightly so she’s no longer completely sprawled out on the couch.

“How dare you?” he growls. His entire body goes deadly still for a few seconds. He doesn’t even blink.

Another still moment passes, then he leaps forward onto her in a wild flurry, his previous task forgotten. His hands move towards her neck and Scully sends a quick prayer that the final step in her plan works. 

She moves to get up with a well-placed punch and Danny goes flying onto the floor. 

Ignoring the faint pulsing of the injuries to her stomach, Scully tries to run to the kitchen, where the gun now lays, but Danny reaches out and grabs her ankle, sliding across the hardwood floors on his stomach. She tries to flick her ankle back to kick him away, but the angle her high heel leaves the floor at causes a piece of it to snap off, and she stumbles. As she tries to steady herself, Danny uses her leg to pull himself up, bringing her to her knees.

Scully scrambles, crawling and stretching every limb of her body as far as it will go while trying to swing her legs and arms around in an attempt to hit Danny.

After a frenzied few seconds, she finally feels the gun under her hands. She grips onto it tightly and uses a hand to push herself upwards. Danny is getting back on his feet after falling on all fours behind her, panting, and she spins around, pointing the gun at him. She’s slightly out of breath too, but she’s not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that.

Instead, she takes one sharp breath, promising herself she’ll make sure to get proper medical attention and take the time to breath later, and says smoothly, “I was right. You aren’t sorry. Your super strength is gone.”

“I did all of it for them. All of it!”

“No, you did it because you wanted a cheap excuse to murder more people. Say their names if you’re so sorry, Danny.”

He takes a shaky step forward and spits in her face, scowling when she doesn’t so much as flinch to acknowledge it as she continues, slowly building in intensity until she’s surprised no other tenants have come to see what the noise is.

“And these ‘labors’. Why did it have to be humans, Danny? It could have been a deer, a boar, a pigeon! Admit it! You wanted to kill again!”

Danny snarls, but he’s no longer an uncatchable villain with super strength and a master plan. She’s got him.

“Say their names!” Scully screams.

Still, nothing.

“Fine, I'll say them for you,” she says.

Scully focuses on remembering the news segment from a few months ago about the tragic passing of Danny Mackerel’s family, trying to recall their names. They come to her as she takes out handcuffs.

“Danny Mackerel, I'm arresting you for the murders of Anne Mackerel, Lily Mackerel, Benjamin Mackerel, Michael Smith, Jesse Dayton, and Jill Cartney, the kidnapping of Natalie Betting, Edward Larke, and Noah Price, as well as first degree burglary and the assault of a federal agent.”

His eyes dart across the apartment, trying to find an escape route, but Scully huffs out a laugh.

“Don’t try anything, Danny. I can shoot  _ you _ wherever I need to.”

He runs towards her, apparently forgetting his super strength is gone, and she shoots him easily in the leg. He folds in on himself, landing in a heap.

Scully takes a moment to take in the satisfying scene, takes off her heels so the broken one doesn’t cause her to trip again, and walks over to Danny, who’s thrashing around dramatically.

“Stop getting blood on Noah’s floor,” she says to him, snapping on the handcuffs on his wrists. She steps back and calls in an ambulance, then finds her phone and calls Mulder.

“Scully, perfect timing. I was just about to call you. We found Noah.”

“You did?” she pants. 

“He was taken at a gas station and put in some dumpster outside of a diner that’s only open from eight to eleven every morning. He was gagged and tied up, but he managed to catch the attention of a woman who was walking home from a party by repeatedly throwing himself against the dumpster’s wall. And wait until you hear this. Noah gave us a name, and you’ll never guess who it is.”

“Danny Mackerel?”

Mulder sighs deeply. “I’m betting that’s not a lucky guess.

“I’ve got him handcuffed, don’t worry.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m a little banged up, but I’m fine. I’ve got an ambulance coming for him, though. I had to shoot him in the leg after he charged at me,” Scully reassures him.

“Are you still at Noah’s apartment?”

“Yeah—”

“I’m on my way,” he says, and hangs up.

While she waits for Mulder, Scully goes to the bathroom so she can use the mirror to examine her wounds. There are multiple open wounds on both sides of her stomach, but they’re small and shallow enough that she’s been able to go on this long without too much difficulty. They’ll need to be stitched up later. She’d do it herself, but the job would probably be too big to finish with whatever she could find in the apartment. 

Instead, she navigates carefully around Noah’s many products surrounding the sink in an attempt to find gauze, then sits on the toilet to steady herself and wraps gauze around her stomach until she can longer see any pinkish hue. She finds a washcloth lying on the tub and uses it to wipe away some of the excess blood that spread out when she was trying to get the gun.

It feels like little time has passed when Scully hears the door open and Mulder call out, “Scully?”

“In the bathroom,” she responds, setting the washcloth down beside her.

Mulder’s eyes double at the sight of her when he comes into the room. “Scully!”

Scully gets up and looks at herself in the mirror again, this time focusing on what Mulder sees. Her pants, blouse, and neck all have blood stained on them. Her eyes are puffy and her mascara is smeared from her fake crying. 

She laughs at what the sight of herself. “There’s not really that much blood,” she says. “It’s worse than it looks.”

Mulder walks over to where she stands and surprises her slightly by hugging her.

“This isn’t too tight?” he asks, looking down at the middle of her blouse, where most of the blood is, and she shakes her head.

“You’re going to get blood on your suit.”

“I don’t care.” 

“Really, I’m fine, Mulder. I promise,” she protests.

“It’s been a while since either one of us has been in danger like this. Just let me worry about you, Scully. ”

“But I—okay.”

Scully hugs him back, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his chest, breathing in the uber-familiar scent of the generic body wash Mulder’s used since the first time she met him. He refuses to buy anything else, and Scully’s pretty sure it’s because he knows how comforting the oddly strong “clean” smell is to her.  

He places his thumb on her chin and tilts her head upwards to give her a brief kiss, then pulls back. 

“Here, I’ll help you clean up,” Mulder says softly, turning towards Noah’s selection of skincare products and lifting bottles up until he finds a face wash. 

Scully sits back on the toilet as Mulder pumps the face wash into his hand. She closes her eyes as he rubs it onto her face in gentle circles, letting herself relax and focus only on the light pressure on her face.

“Uh, Agent Scully?”

Scully opens her eyes in a panic, strangely guilty to be found in such an innocent position, to find an EMT standing at the bathroom door.

“Yes, sorry, that’s me,” she says, standing up.

“Okay, I’ve got the perp in the bus. Do you want to ride with us?”

“Agent Mulder can take me.”

The EMT nods and leaves them alone again.

Scully laughs. “Why do I feel like I’ve been caught in the act?”

“Come here,” Mulder beckons. “You’ve still got soap on your face.”

He wets a new washcloth and scrubs the facewash, just as softly and slowly as before, and Scully sighs in appreciation. 

“You should probably have gone in the ambulance, too,” he chides, and she laughs.

“I think it’s considered impolite to ride with someone you shot.”

“He struck first, so I think it’s alright.”

He extends his hand and she takes it, letting him lead her down to to where the car is parked. The apartment supervisor is amazingly still asleep.

“Is Noah at the hospital?” Scully asks as she sits in the passenger seat. She winces putting the seat belt over her wound.

Mulder looks over from the driver’s seat. “Just break the law, Scully.”

“Gladly.” She obliges, unbuckling it. “Well, not gladly. I guess we’re setting a bad example.”

“You caught a serial killer. The government owes you one. And they’re just looking Noah over. He’ll probably be done by the time we get there for them to stitch you up.”

Scully nods and looks at her reflection in the side mirror, now scrubbed clean. She’s okay. She’s still able to catch a killer, and she’s okay. 

* * *

After they’ve patched her up, the doctor at the hospital congratulates Scully for doing such a fantastic job stopping the wound. Mulder feels a surge of pride even though he’s seen her do much more impressive things than that. 

“How are you feeling?” Mulder asks as soon as it’s just the two of them in the hospital room. 

“Fine,” she says groggily. “Did they tell you how long they want me to stay here?”

“Maybe overnight.”

She groans. 

“I know, I told them you felt fine and that you were a doctor, but they just want to be sure,” he reassures her. “There’s not really protocol for somebody trying to tear someone apart.”

Scully scrunches her nose up. “Is Audrey still with Leslie and Natalie?”

“I sent Noah to pick her up and bring her here. He’s already waxing poetic about the woman who found him in the dumpster.”

Scully nods. “Figures. Do you have any theory on how Danny Mackerel developed super strength? Not that it really matters now, I guess.”

“I told a couple other agents to go ahead and interview him. Apparently he went to some psychic who connected him to the spirit of Hercules.”

Scully groans again, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly. 

“But I think it may have been an extreme case of the placebo effect,” Mulder continues.

“So just because he believed he was like Hercules, he developed Herculean strength? I guess that’s plausible,” she shrugs, then winces at the action. It’s a testament to how far they’ve come when she doesn’t try to hide the look of pain on her face.

Mulder squeezes her hand to take her mind of her soreness, but something about her hand feels different. There’s something missing. 

“Scully, what happened to your wedding ring?”

Her entire face instantly turns red and she turns away from him. “I don’t really want to tell you what happened.”

“Is that what Danny was after?”

Scully nods. “Hippolyta's girdle.”

“Did you lose it? It’s fine if it’s gone, you did what you had to.”

“Uh, technically I still have it,” she says sheepishly. 

It takes him a couple seconds to get what she’s implying, but he snorts when he realizes. 

‘Scully, did you swallow it?” he asks through peals of laughter. 

She brings both hands up to cover her face. “Mulder, I  _ had _ to. If I had just thrown it off, he would have killed me. I had to have the time to convince whatever the source of his strength was that he wasn’t really sorry so I could overpower him.”

“No, no, that was a genius plan.”

She uncovers her face.

“But you know what’s going to happen, right?”

“Yes, Mulder! I know how the digestive system works!”

The mix of fury and embarrassment on her face makes him laugh so hard that Scully reluctantly joins in.

“What are we laughing about?” Noah asks jovially as he walks in, Audrey’s hand in his.

“Nothing,” Mulder says quickly.

Noah’s wearing the same clothes he was kidnapped in, covered in mystery stains, and his hair is slightly matted, but he seems fine for someone who was kidnapped and trapped in a dumpster for hours. 

“Cool,” Noah says. “Audrey and I went to get lunch before coming here. I figured you might want something other than hospital food, so I got you some, too. Here.”

He passes a takeout box to Mulder, who opens it to find several empanadas.

“Addie, you ate that?” Scully asks, clearly surprised that the girl who was begging for Lunchables a few days ago ate Argentinian food without any problem.

Audrey nods and Noah explains, “She was a little nervous, but we started off with some chips and salsa and some alfajor cookies to get in the spirit.”

Once again, Mulder revels in the many sides of Noah Price—a psychology prodigy who brings a box of dry cereal for lunch, who stocks his apartment with a healthy supply of Oribe hair products and a total of ten pieces of furniture, and who’s also apparently a natural with kids.

“I’m proud of you, Audrey,” Scully says, then reaches her arms out toward her. “Come give me a hug.”

Audrey complies, wrapping her arms around Scully tightly. Scully grimaces slightly at the pressure, but quickly turns it into a beaming smile when Audrey breaks away and sits on the hospital bed beside her. 

“Lila’s mom had to go to the hospital last month so she could have a baby,” Audrey says, swinging her feet. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Um—”

Scully’s eyes meet Mulder’s. She’s clearly debating how much to tell her, but Mulder just shrugs. It’s hard to find a balance between babying Audrey, which she recognizes and is deeply offended by, and telling her information that will scare her, or at least give her a deep distrust of the government. Mostly they just rely on vague blanket statements about bad guys and monsters.

Scully does just this, explaining, “A bad guy hurt me when I was trying to stop him.”

“Did you stop him?” Audrey asks, extremely seriously, looking Scully right in the eyes. 

“Yeah. He’s going to jail now.”

“Okay!” Audrey chirps, satisfied. 

“Do you want a baby brother or sister, Audrey?” Noah asks, grinning.

Audrey vehemently shakes her head. 

She looks so solemn that Noah has to stifle a laugh. “Why not?” 

“I don’t want to share my mom and dad,” she says simply.

Mulder’s heart swells at the sight of Scully pulling Audrey close again and rustling her hair. She’s still in her pajamas from last night, and obviously still sleepy, as she snuggles beside Scully and closes her eyes. 

Scully turns to him and winks, and for what might be the millionth time in their partnership, Mulder knows they’re thinking the exact same thing: they can’t believe they get to have this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wraps up the main mystery! Next chapter will be an epilogue. 
> 
> I'm really going to miss this story and universe, but I've already got some one-shots set in this universe planned out. I'd never pass on a opportunity to write a MSR wedding or pregnancy fic! Stay tuned. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the epilogue, as promised! I was nervous introducing Noah to this story, because of course the center of anything X-Files related is Mulder and Scully, but I thought in this universe they'd be looking for a way to spend more time with Audrey, and with that thought, Noah came up pretty organically. I really enjoyed writing in his point of view for this and finding a new perspective on Mulder and Scully. I know I'm always a little cautious when OCs are in fic, so it's my hope that I didn't mess with the show we all love too much! Enjoy!

Noah Price likes working for the FBI, don’t get him wrong. He loves helping people and getting bad guys off the streets. It’s just that so much of it is sucking up to guys who care more about using their badges to skip ahead in lines then actually doing their jobs and fighting to have anyone listen to him. 

Agent Mulder and Agent Scully, though? Those guys are  _ cool _ . He hopes one day he can have a partnership like theirs. Like, he’s seen them have entire conversations using only their eyes. Even his supervisors, who call them Mr. and Mrs. Spooky, begrudgingly respect them, because no other division closes as many cases as them. They can get major murder cases done in three days with time to spare. Not to mention Agent Scully literally got her skin ripped apart and came back to work two days later.

The rumors he heard about them when he first started working at the FBI were insane. They’d both held Assistant Director Skinner at gunpoint and hadn’t been fired. Both of them were abducted by aliens. Agent Mulder had been falsely tried for murder. 

Noah did some digging and found nothing to prove or deny the rumors, but he guesses it doesn’t really matter. What he does know is that they let him help out on cases and actually listen to his theories. The cases are fascinating, too. Even at Harvard, Noah got used to being one of the smartest people in the room, but Mulder and Scully are so knowledgeable about anything strange that he learns something on every case. If you’d told him at the Academy that he’d be practicing the best way to interrogate a vampire or how to distinguish a real abductee from a fake, he probably would’ve laughed. He would’ve thought doing that sounded awesome, but he still would have laughed.

Tonight, though, Noah’s not focused on a case. He’s focused on finding a tiny kindergarten called Little Sprouts. Apparently Mulder and Scully are hippies. 

Finally, after turning around for the third time, he sees a tiny herb garden that seems like a good sign he’s in the right place. He pulls into the parking lot and sees a brick building with cherry red doors and a sign with ivy growing across it. Mulder and Scully’s van is parked near the entrance, unmistakably theirs due to the bumper stickers coating the back. 

Noah fiddles with the collar of his shirt and exits his car, walking through the double doors into a lobby. The seats are made to look like mushrooms, the walls covered with murals of wildflowers.

An older woman in a shimmery dress printed with stars approaches him. 

“Hi!” she says.

“Hello,” Noah says with a wave. “I’m here for the show.”

“It’s at the end of the left hallway,” the woman says with a wide smile. Her demeanor screams “preschool teacher”, and her excitement at giving Noah directions makes it obvious to him that Little Sprouts is a great place to work, as many teachers he’s met become jaded after many years fighting school districts and administration.  

“Who are you here for?” she asks.

“Audrey—uh, Mulder? Scully? Scully-Mulder?” Noah pushes his glasses up awkwardly. “I guess I’m not really sure. I work with her parents.”

“Oh, you’re Noah! Audrey talks about you all the time.”

“She does?” Noah says, touched that Audrey doesn’t associate him with putting her parents in danger or something similarly negative. 

“I think she thinks you’re all monster hunters,” the woman giggles. “I suppose you are, in a way. Can you tell me what you do in the FBI? Dana and Fox always keep it so hush-hush.”

Ignoring how weird it is to hear Agents Mulder and Scully be called by their first names, Noah stutters, “Um, special cases.”

She looks at him expectantly, not satisfied with what he’s said.

“Well, we go on cases other agents think are too weird.”

The woman’s eyes go large. “Oh, I see. Well, they’re both in there already. The show should be starting in about ten minutes.”

“Thank you!” Noah says, feeling kind of cool for having such a secretive job. He walks down the hallway to find a surprisingly large auditorium for a small school. The set is made up of fake trees and an impeccably painted backdrop made to resemble a rabbit’s burrow. 

Scully and Mulder are sitting in the second row of seats, along with Assistant Director Skinner and a handful of others Noah doesn’t recognize. Although Scully and Mulder are dressed nicely, as the invitation for the show they gave Noah requested, it’s still weird seeing them outside of work and in clothes that aren’t strictly professional. Agent Scully’s wearing a black jumpsuit and light blue cardigan, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, and Agent Mulder is wearing a green sweater and dark jeans. Skinner has obviously come straight from the office, wearing what Noah saw him in earlier that day. 

What’s even weirder to Noah is seeing the usually serious and straight-laced Skinner joking around, laughing at something Agent Mulder’s saying. Agent Scully turns to say something to a woman to her right, then sees Noah standing beside her. 

“Hey, Noah,” she says. “This is my brother and sister-in law, and their kids.” 

Scully’s brother looks bored out of his mind. He looks like a typical businessman, and he obviously dislikes Agent Mulder, from the way he keeps huffing whenever Mulder looks toward Scully. His wife looks friendly, though, and their two kids look to be middle school aged.  

“And I’m Dana’s mom, Maggie,” an older woman who looks similar to Agent Sully says. Noah can see candy and a neatly wrapped present sticking out of her purse. Obviously, she’s come prepared to spoil Audrey silly after her performance. 

“Hi Scully family!” Noah says, trying to snap out of his bad habit of analyzing people when he meets them. 

Noah sits in the open seat next to Assistant Director Skinner, Mulder and Scully in the two seats to his right. Mulder leans across Skinner to speak to Noah.

“I found a case in Buffalo. A week ago, two teenage girls snuck out to see a rock concert. Their bodies were found in the woods the next morning.”

Skinner sighs heavily. “Do you want me to swap seats with Agent Price?”

Mulder laughs. “Nah, you’re good.”

“Are you thinking a cult?” Noah asks. 

Mulder nods. “Some ritual killing, at least. I’ll save the gory details for when we’re not surrounded by kids.”

“When are we leaving?”

Scully turns to them and shares a knowing look and smile with Mulder. Scully’s brother gives another huff, and Noah can hear his wife shush him quietly, but his focus is on his friends.

Mulder looks at Skinner, his eyebrows raised, and Skinner nods. “You can tell him. Maybe it’ll get you off my back.”

“Never,” Mulder says. “Do you have the paperwork?” 

Skinner opens the briefcase sitting in front of him and rummages around in it, eventually pulling out a pen and a couple sheets of paper.

“We want you to go to Buffalo,” Mulder says.

“Just me?”

“If you get there and decide it’s something big, one of us will go up. But I doubt we’ll need to, even if it is big,” Scully says.

Noah is so shocked he struggles to get his mouth to form words. “But my bosses barely let me go out for a day on a case, they’ll never—wait.”

He looks down at the papers Skinner’s holding and lets out an audible gasp

“We didn’t want to complete it fully, in case you didn’t want to transfer,” Scully explains. “But Mulder and I can’t always go jetting off across the country for cases now, and there’s not many people we trust to investigate fully. So we decided to ask you to become an official member of the X-Files.” 

Noah stares blankly at the forms.

“Well?” Mulder asks.

“Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes! Of course!” Noah exclaims. “I’ll sign them right—”

The lights dim, and Noah instantly sets the papers down to watch the show. From a psychologist's perspective, Special Agent Fox Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully act just like any other parents watching their child perform. Their eyes light up when Audrey comes on stage, dressed in rabbit ears and a tail made of cotton balls. They mouth the lines they spent weeks helping her memorize without realizing it. They turn to their family members when the curtain bows to see how impressed they are.

That’s what it would look like to any outsider, at least. Agent Noah Price sees two of the FBI’s finest. They’re his mentors, his friends, and now his bosses. They’re people who found a twisted serial killer in just a couple days, and who’ve found others in less. 

Noah Price leans over and signs the papers with a flourish. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sad that this story is finished, but I'll definitely be coming back with some more stories set in this universe, as I've said before. Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed!


End file.
